


When you wish upon a Deathstar

by traumschwinge



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space Opera, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Endgame Cherik so don't worry, F/M, Genocide, It's based on Episode IV what do you expect?, M/M, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-01-24 22:25:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1619150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traumschwinge/pseuds/traumschwinge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...</p>
<p>Prince Erik Lehnsherr has been captured by the Empire but before that he managed to send his faithful droid for help. Too bad that the only person he dares to ask for help is a good for nothing scoundrel, one Captain Charles Xavier.<br/>It's also a testament to his bad luck that his droid is found by Emma Frost who decides it is a good idea to join Captain Xavier on his rescue mission. If Erik had seen that detail coming, he would just have tried to call...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Kage for naming this fic. But most of my thanks go of course to Gerec who's the reason I started and continue to write this AU in the first place.
> 
> Loosely based on the plot of Star Wars: Episode VI A new Hope.

Prince Erik Lehnsherr of Alderaan kicked the wall next to the escape pod. Not that it helped. He was still angry and now his foot hurt. But he needed a vent for his anger and the wall was the only target he could hit. Well, shit. He had known they were in trouble the second the Star Destroyer had appeared on their screens. The hail had only been the final straw. In a few minutes, those Imperial bastards would board his ship and take him with them. He hadn't even bothered to invite them on board, because if you were with the fucking Empire you were welcome where ever you wanted to be welcome anyway.

What frustrated him the most about his situation was that he would go with them willingly, if only to protect the good men and women aboard his own ship. Despite everything anyone was thinking, saying or writing about him, he knew how to be a good Prince. He just hoped his good will would be enough to ensure that nobody would get hurt. It didn't mean he wouldn't take precautions before, though.

He had brought his favorite astromech droid with him, the one he'd had for all his life and spent so much time tinkering with. After he had put some electromagnets next to the droid's wheels so it would be able to magnetize itself against say the hull of a ship he had even given it a name, Magneto. It was almost like a dear friend to him and he would be sad to see it go. However, his plans demanded for the only droid he could trust with this mission. He had to sent Magneto and he had to do it quickly. It could only be a matter of minutes now before the Imperial troops would board his ship and take him into their custody. What would happen to him when they had him bore no thinking about. The Empire was the enemy. He must never forget that.

He crouched down in front of the droid and pressed a few buttons to ready everything for recording. “You'll only show this to somebody we can trust, understood?” he hissed.

The droid whistled its agreement. Of course it did, Erik had never doubted that.

“Good.” Erik bit his lips. If only he knew to whom to send Magneto. The only name that came to his mind Erik knew would be a bad idea. Like hell he would ask that scoundrel of a childhood acquaintance—they hadn't been friends, you couldn't be friends after just one single meeting—but from all Erik knew he might just be the one person able and crazy enough to get him out of the Empire's clutches again. Not that Erik had kept an eye on the rouge's career. He had just heard about the smuggling business by accident.

“Go and find,” Erik sighed. “Try to find Charles Xavier. Perhaps he can help.”

Magneto whistled again and Erik started to record his message.

“My name is Erik. By the time you hear this message, I will be a prisoner of the Empire. Help if you can. If not...” He sighed. “Find Captain Charles Xavier of the Millennium Falcon. Please, this is my only hope.”

He didn't want to sound as desperate as he did in the end. However, he knew what fate would await him. He would be lucky if they'd just kill him. With all he had done and all they must assume he knew, torture would be more likely. He patted the droid on its bulbous top, before he opened the door to the escape pod. He just hoped nobody would suspect an unmanned pod.

“You know what to do,” Erik told the droid. “I'm counting on you.”

Magneto whistled again, sounding a bit unhappy now. Erik sighed. “I'm sure you will come back with help just in time,” he told it. “Now off you go.”

He closed the door and sent the pod off before he could change his mind.

What had he been thinking asking for Charles' help?

 


	2. Chapter 1

The little tremor going through the ground had Emma almost ruin her manicure. She was sitting on her bed, hiding from the dusty outside—and her aunt who always much too keen to get her to do some work. What the hell, she thought. There never were any tremors here, or earthquakes or anything interesting really. But the ground had shaken and there had been some noise outside.

She was alone at home for all she knew. Her aunt was visiting some neighbors which could take hours around here out in the nowhere and her uncle was at work. It couldn't hurt taking a look outside just to make sure nothing serious was going on. Just to be sure, she grabbed her blaster on her way out.

The outside was just as dry and sandy as always. This was why she avoided going outside. The weather and all the sand was bad for her skin and even worse to her hair. She would spent hours to get it back into some semblance of its usual perfection.

Not far from the front door of their dome-like house, something big had hit the ground. It looked like a space craft and at the same time it didn't. Emma tightened her grip around the blaster as she walked up to it.

Upon closer examination, the thing turned out to be an escape pod, half buried in rock and sand. Emma sauntered over, gun still ready but her arm not yet raised. She'd never had any qualms about shooting anybody and her reactions were as quick as they could be. Staying at home all day meant you needed to find something to do. For Emma, this had often meant practicing how to shoot things.

Just when she arrived at the pod, the door hissed open. Emma raised an eyebrow. There was nobody inside the pod. But that didn't mean it was empty. A high whistle greeted her as she took another step forward. There was a dirty old astromech droid inside the pod. The only thing Emma could hold in its favor was its color. The thing looked ancient.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. The answer was a series of incomprehensible whistles and beeps. She sighed. “Listen, sugar, if you don't even have the ability to speak a standard human dialect, this might be a little difficult.” She shook her head as the thing rolled over to her. “Whatever you might think, I'm not your mother.”

Emma turned and walked back to the house. Of course, the droid followed her, rolling slowly over the sand and gravel. “As I said,”she sighed, looking at the droid over her shoulder. “I'm not your mother. Imprint is reserved for hatchlings. And droids don't hatch from escape pods.” The droid protested with a lot of beeping and excited whistling. Oh dear, Emma thought.

Back inside, she called for Hank. Hank was a protocol droid, just as ancient as the astromech droid looked. Chances were Hank would be able to make sense of the annoying noises it used to communicate. It took the old droid several minutes to waddle into her room in his disturbingly stiff walk, time she used to start cleaning the droid. If it really believed her to be its mother it couldn't roll around covered in decades old layers of dirt. Whoever its owner had been he sure never had washed his hands before he'd touched the droid.

“Mistress Emma, you called?” Hank's electronic voice asked.

“Yes, I need you to translate what this,” she gestured to the droid. “is trying to tell me. It sounds like its urgent, whatever it is.” She let herself drop onto her bed.

Hank and the droid talked for a while. Emma waited. The droid wasn't as dirty anymore, but she would eventually have to clean it some more. It had once been white that much was visible through the layers of gray and dirt. Maybe she could even get it back to its former shiny and sparkly white eventually. Granted, that was just in case the wet towel wouldn't ruin her hands first. She wondered who the hell put a droid into an escape pod. The only conclusion she had on that matter, though, was whoever it was had dirty hands, as seen on the droid's control pad.

“Mistress Emma,” Hank finally called out to her. “This droid here says his master sent him away with an important message for one Charles Xavier.” The smaller droid interrupted here. “Alright, alright, I tell her...His master is a prisoner of the Empire and he needs help only said Xavier character can provide. You don't happen to know somebody like that?”

Emma sighed. “Not that I remember.” She thought for a moment. “Did he send you to Tatooine on purpose or has it just been the nearest ball of dirt to drop you onto?”

“His master did send him here on purpose,” Hank translated the droid's answer. “He also says he has a message for anyone who could be trusted and wants to show it to you.”

Emma laughed. “Darling, you have known me for less than half an hour and trust me? How very brave of you.”

“I can't say that to her,” Hank told the droid. “Okay, alright, if you insist. He said that you look familiar.”

“Familiar, huh?” Emma shook her head. “Well, if you insist, show me that message of yours.”

The droid beeped once, before it rolled back a foot and then activated its holoprojector, playing the recorded message. “My name is Erik,” the handsome man in the hologram said. “By the time you hear this message, I will be a prisoner of the Empire. Help if you can. If not...” He sighed. “Find Captain Charles Xavier of the Millennium Falcon. Please, this is my only hope.”

Emma watched the recording one more time. She couldn't take her eyes of the man. He looked somewhat familiar, even though she couldn't say she'd ever seen him before. There was something about him that reminded her of her uncle, though she couldn't put the finger on what. “He's cute,” was what she finally said when the droid stopped replaying the recording.

She leaned back on her bed, looking at the ceiling for a while. Indulging in the search for this Captain Xavier might be interesting for a while. It wasn't like she had anything important to do. Driving into the nearest city and asking around for some space ship captain would be a nice change of pace. She had wanted to go and look at the newest fashion—if one could call the rags they wore around here on the outer rim that—anyway.

“Okay,” Emma said after a long while. “I will help you save your,” her mouth twitched. “Prince. I have some idea where we could start looking for that pilot friend of his. Hank, you will come with us, I need you to translate what it says.”

“Of course, Mistress Emma,” Hank said. She was already busy getting ready to leave for the nearest town. It was only a two hour drive through the desert, but then again it was a two hour drive through the desert in an open vehicle and she at least needed something to protect her head. She should also take her goggles with her, even though they would ruin her hair even further. Getting sand in one's eyes was always so undignified.

She also packed two canisters of water into her landspeeder, before she loaded the astromech droid in as well. Hank could see for himself, she knew fully well that despite his stiff movements he was perfectly capable to board any speeder on his own.

The drive was uneventful and Emma was glad for it. As much as she liked to shoot bandits, it was always such a hassle and a general waste of time. The town nearby happened to be Mos Eisley, a grubby spaceport filled with scum and mostly unpleasant rogues. Wearing high heels wasn't just a fashion statement for Emma in that town.

She parked her landspeeder near one of the many bars in town. Where sailors gathered—space or oceans really didn't matter much as one would think—there always was plenty of alcohol and fun available. Drunk men could be so annoying. Emma hesitated a moment before she pulled the scarf she had draped around her hair to protect it from wind and sand down. If anyone would dare to do anything inappropriate, they would regret it. The last guy to try this didn't count much as a guy anymore.

“You wait here,” she told Hank. “Behave. I don't want to come back and have to get you out of trouble. Just... don't talk to anyone, understood? I won't rescue you. I will rescue it.” She points at the astromech droid. “But I will leave you behind.”

“Understood, Mistress Emma,” Hank replied. “I will wait here for your return. Wake me when you need me again.” With that, his eyes went dark. Emma assumed he would take a break to save his energy. Sometimes, he got tired much too easily, the poor old droid. As far as Emma knew, Hank was even older than her and had belonged to her mother, a long time ago.

Emma shot the other droid a stern look and muttered something like “I dare you getting him into trouble” before she turned around to start looking for Captain Xavier.

He couldn't be a very upstanding citizen if somebody captured by the Empire asked for his help. So maybe Mos Eisley had been a good call from the start. She headed for one of the bars she knew most of the smugglers and scoundrels frequented at least once during their stays. She knew that place well enough, having visited it more than once before.

It was a dimly lit dirt hole of a bar called Chalmun's Cantina, or often enough just the Cantina. Emma sometimes dropped by to listen to the musicians playing there. She would never go in there unarmed, though. Too many men of the more dangerous sort tended to hang around that bar. Her hand instinctively stayed close to the holster of her blaster.

Inside, she went straight to the bar. She didn't want to waste any time asking around the patrons for Captain Xavier. After all, she didn't even know the man's reputation. And aside from that, asking around for a probably dangerous stranger just because a hologram had told her so sounded very ridiculous and possibly suicidal.

She was just about to ask the bar tender if he'd ever heard the name Charles Xavier or Millennium Falcon before, when somebody touched her arm. Immediately, she had her gun in her hand and subtly pointed at the man's stomach.

“Whoa whoa, don't be like that,” the surprisingly young looking man—was he even old enough to be allowed in here?--said. “I just wanted to tell you that I've seen supernovae up close, but I've never seen anything shining as bright as you.”

Emma's mouth twitched. “Do these ever work on anyone?” she asked. “Back off, I'm not interested.”

“They usually make people laugh when I tell them,” the man—boy? smiled. “Why are you here, if not to get picked up?” He brushed some strands of brown hair back out of his face, bringing his startling blue eyes to Emma's attention. The glint in them made him look at least another five years younger. How had he even gotten into a bar looking like that.

“I'm looking for someone,” Emma said brusquely.

The boy raised an eyebrow. “Your boyfriend?”

“A captain,” Emma allowed. She wondered for a moment what it would take to get him to back off. Whatever it was, it wasn't worth the hassle. It would be much easier to ask him and then move on. “You don't happen to know a ship called the Millennium Falcon, sugar?”

“Actually,” the boy grinned. “This might be your lucky day.”

Before he could explain what he meant by that, somebody grabbed him by his shoulder and spun him around. “I've been looking for you everywhere, Xavier,” the Vodran—a humanoid reptile with caramel skin and an impressive ring of spikes around his face—holding him growled. Emma arched both of her perfect eyebrows. This was the Captain Xavier she was looking for? Or could he be his son?

“Listen, mate, I don't know what you want, but would you please let go of me?” Xavier said. He sounded still calm and Emma could see why. There was already somebody standing behind the Vodran. “You're making Logan nervous.”

“Who's Logan?” the Vodran growled.

“Him,” Xavier smiled, pointing at the hairy creature behind the Vodran. The Vodran turned his head for just a second. However, that was enough for several things happening in quick succession. Logan smiled, revealing all his teeth. He didn't do anything, though. It was Xavier who grabbed the Vodran by his shoulders and rammed his knee into the Vodran's body, before letting go of him in favor of grabbing Emma's hand. “We'll talk later, let's get out of here,” Xavier murmured as he dragged her out through the bar's back door into an alley.

Emma stumbled after him. She didn't have much of a choice, Xavier holding her wrist in an iron grip and his chum following closely after them. The bar they left behind was in uproar. Whatever the Vodran had wanted couldn't be pleasant if the speed with which Xavier hurried down dark and narrow alleys and taking increasingly sudden and seemingly random turns was any indication. They ran for quite a while. By the time Xavier finally deigned to stop and take a breather in a hiding spot, Emma was pissed. He had dragged her though most of the surface part of the city without any explanation whatsoever and she had no idea why she'd even let him.

When Xavier turned to her and dared to smile, she punched him in the face.

“Ouch,” Xavier groaned. “That was uncalled for.”

“No it wasn't,” Emma growled back. “And tell your hairy friend to get out of my back if he doesn't want me to shoot him.”

Xavier's chum growled, but stepped just barely into Emma's field of vision anyway.

“Who was that in the bar?” Emma demanded. In all the excitement one stand of her now not as perfect anymore hair had fallen into her eyes. She brushed it back. “And who the fuck are you?”

“I,” Xavier said and—oh goodness—he actually bowed. “Am Charles Xavier, Captain of the famous Millennium Falcon. At your service.” He took her hand and kissed the back of it, before Emma could pull away.

What in the verse had she herself gotten into?

“If that truly is the case, Captain Xavier, then we do need to talk.” Emma still held her blaster in her hand, ready to shoot either or both of them down and hand them over to the proper authorities if they tried anything funny.

Xavier extended one hand in a pacifying gesture, clearly aimed at his buddy. “I do think so if you came looking for me with nothing more than my name,” Xavier said. “But not here. They will still be looking for me. May I propose we'll move this to my ship?”

“No, you may not,” Emma growled. “Where ever we're going, I need to go to my landspeeder first. There's something I need to show you.”

“I can come with you,” Xavier mused. “To your speeder. You can show me there. And then we'll decided where to go next.”

Emma nodded. “Sounds fine with me.”

“Can I borrow this?” Xavier pointed at the scarf around Emma's neck. “Just in case they're still out looking for me.”

Emma laughed. “Oh, sugar, that won't disguise you to anyone.” But she tossed him the scarf and her goggles anyway. With quick, practiced motions, Xavier put the goggles on and then wrapped the scarf around his head, hiding his hair and half his face under it, before he shrugged of his black vest and handed it to Logan.

“Wait for me at the ship,” Xavier told him. Logan growled lowly. “I'll be fine, don't worry. I just want the Falcon to be ready in case we...in case something happens. Please? This might be urgent.” Logan sighed, whined but didn't protest any further. With one last glare directed at Emma, he hurried off.

“Shall we then?” Emma asked.

“After you,” Xavier replied, gesturing for her to lead the way.

Emma led him back through the town, watching out not to cross anyone who looked like they were searching for Xavier. “What did you do to them?”

“Who says I've done anything?” Xavier hissed back.

“Darling, they wouldn't be looking for you like that and you wouldn't be hiding if you hadn't done something very bad,” Emma smirked. They were already close to her speeder. In a few more minutes, they would have other things to worry about. Emma just hoped Xavier would recognize the man in the recording.

“That Vodran was working for one of my...shall we say competitors.” Xavier tugged at the scarf. “I might owe him some money.”

Emma snorted. “Great. I'm looking for someone to help and you need help yourself.”

“I can handle it,” Xavier dismissed her worries. “It's not the first time something like this happens. I'm just having a bad month.”

“Sure thing, sugar,” Emma laughed. “I do hope for your sake that you're right.” She pointed at the speeder ahead. “That's mine. I want you to meet a droid,” she added, just as a warning.

Xavier's eyes went wide when they reached the landspeeder and he noticed the astromech droid in the back.”Mags,” he gasped. The droid turned the dome so its photoreceptor was pointed at Xavier and whistled happily. “What are you doing here, old friend?”

“You really do know him?” Emma asked. “He's just a standard issue droid, a little old, granted, but how do you even recognize him?” She was standing next to Xavier, scowling at his sudden delight.

“I would know this droid everywhere, it's...” Xavier bit his lower lips. He looked around, then shook his head. “Where's his owner? Where's Erik? You do know him, right?”

Something must have shown on Emma's face although she was sure her complexion was as unreadable as ever, because Xavier sighed. He looked like he wanted to ruffle his hair if the scarf hadn't been in the way. “He's the reason why you're looking for me, isn't he?” Xavier sounded resigned. “What kind of trouble has he gotten himself into?”

Emma looked around. Nobody paid them much heed, but that didn't have to mean anything. Hank seemed still to be offline as well. “The Imperial kind,” she whispered so softly only Xavier would be able to hear it.

The sting of curses that followed jerked Hank awake. But even Hank's remark about the origin of several of them wasn't enough to quiet Xavier. Emma was impressed.


	3. Chapter 2

Erik squared his shoulders as he was lead down some anonymous, sterile, white hallway. A Stormtrooper—blaster rifle in hand and stiff as robots—marched on either side of him. For a few minutes, he had entertained the thought he could somehow overpower them and escape. He knew that none of this was realistic. He could maybe subdue one of them, maybe even wrestle the rifle from his grip, somehow shooting the other and flee the scene, but where should he run to.

He guessed he was aboard one of the Empire's bigger ships. The long time it took them to walk him from the brig to the ship's bridge was proof enough for that. Or maybe they were just taking the long way to make him stew. At any rate, it worked. Erik was thinking about what would await him. He knew they would question him and he knew it wouldn't be pleasant, but that was about it. He didn't even know who would question him.

He prayed to the universe it wouldn't be Smid.

There were all the stories about the man that had fought the war. Some said he even had started it. He sure wasn't the one that had finished it. From all Erik knew, to Darth Smid the war had not yet ended, would most likely never end. He was the cruelest hound of the Empire and sometimes even thought of to be immortal. Erik shuddered at the memory of the man's eyes. They had met once when he had been but a child but he doubted he'd ever forget him. Not when he still woke some nights from dreams where these eyes had followed him wherever he went.

It was just his luck that of course it was Darth Smid who stood in the center of the bridge, his back turned but Erik would recognize the man anywhere, even if he hadn't been wearing that ridiculous helmet of his. Erik clenched his hands to fists. It was too late now to wrestle the blaster rifle from the hands of the Stormtrooper next to him. There were at least twenty officers present, plus about ten Stormtroopers and Darth Smid himself. He wouldn't be quick enough to shoot Smid, no matter how much he wanted to. Erik would have to wait his time for that. He hated it.

“Your Highness, I'm pleased to see you finally have decided to join me,” Darth Smid said. He hadn't even turned around yet and Erik could already feel the hairs on the back of his neck rising. What ever he had planned to do to avoid meeting Smid, it was too late now. He wanted to fight but there was no way to fight. Even though Erik did not believe the stories that were told about Smid's dark and uncanny abilities, he didn't want to find out for sure. His nails dug into his palms.

“It was not my decision to come here,” Erik hissed through gritted teeth.

“Oh, details,” Smid waved away Erik's words. “What matters, my dear boy, is that you're here now.” Smid finally turned around to face Erik. He smiled brightly and if not for his eyes, one could think Erik's presence on his bridge was the best thing that could happen to him. The look in his eyes, though, sent shivers down Erik's spine. And they were definitely not of the pleasant sort.

“What do you want from me?” Erik crossed his arms in front of his chest. He didn't want to come off as defensive, but he was afraid he might want to punch Smid really bad really soon. Hitting that helmet must feel like hitting a bell. At least, Erik liked to imagine that it would sound like that to Smid. His hands were curled to fists where Smid wouldn't see it.

Smid waved him closer. Erik had only the choice between going on his own volition or being led to him by the Stormtroopers. Erik preferred to walk instead of being dragged. “My dear boy,” Smid said when Erik was only a few steps away from him. Erik stopped. “I would like you to join me.”

“Like hell!” Erik snapped. Never had he thought Smid would propose something that ludicrous. Did his delusions know no bounds? Erik almost laughed, the bitter sound already in his throat threatening to spill. “I will never join you. You're insane! How could you even think for a second I might want to join you?”

Smid's smile brightened. Now, it looked like he was genuinely delighted by Erik's answer. As if he had just waited for Erik to decline. “Well, I'm so sorry to hear that.” He was definitely not sorry. Erik would even have gone as far as describing him as gleeful. All alarm bells in the back out his mind ringed. “I really hate to do what you force me to do now. If you'd direct your attention towards the main screen, my dear boy.”

Erik didn't want to do as Smid had told him. His body was shaking with anger. All he really wanted to do was punch Smid—or shoot that grin off his evil face with a blaster. But then the main screen flickered on and the pitch black was replaced by the full view of a beautiful blue planet. White clouds idly drifted through the atmosphere, hiding the lush green continents from view. Erik held his breath. He knew this planet. Of course he knew this planet, it was his home planet, Alderaan.

“No,” Erik gasped. Whatever Smid was about to order, to do couldn't be good.

“I'm afraid, my dear boy,” Smid said, who hadn't turned away from Erik for even a second. Erik was pretty sure Smid enjoyed watching his terror. He just wished he would be better at reining his emotions in. “your refusal leaves me no other choice.”

Erik felt panic bubbling up in his stomach, cold shock pulling the blood from his fingers and only leaving behind only cold. “Please, no, please, stop this, this is madness, you can't just,” Erik whispered. By now he had guessed what ship he was on and he had seen the ship's specs and blueprints. There was only one reason for Smid to show him the planet before he would pulverize it, blasting it from existence and only leaving black void and dust behind. “This is madness.”

“One day you will see the necessity of it, my darling boy,” Smid sighed. “Ready the superlaser.”

“No!” Erik screamed. He lunged forward and threw himself at Smid. He couldn't let him do that. But instead of knocking Smid to the floor—or causing him any discomfort at all—Erik was almost immediately knocked back by some force and hit the hard floor of the bridge with a groan. Smid hadn't even moved.

“You have no idea how much this pains me to do,” Smid sighed. “Fire when ready.”

Erik scrambled back to his feet. His whole body ached from whatever had hit him. Smid had sauntered over to him and was now placing a hand on his shoulder, grip so tight Erik couldn't shake it of even if he tried. “You might want to see this,” Smid cheered. “I wouldn't want you to miss a second of it.”

Smid made him watch through all of it. The one quick flash as the laser shot through empty space, the fraction of a second when nothing happened after it had hit the planet and then the planet exploded, into nothing but dust and flashes. Erik didn't breathe while it happened. He clenched his jaw and waited for it to be over.

“Erik, dear boy, I really look forward to our next meeting,” Smid said when it was over. He patted Erik's shoulder, but Erik couldn't feel it anymore. He felt numb all over. Numb and cold and like the ground had dropped under his feet. He didn't even notice when the Stormtroopers stepped up next to him and grabbed his arms. Erik had expected to feel anger or pain by what Smid would do to him, but now he could feel anything at all.

Alderaan was gone.

“I really do hope you won't force me to do anything like that ever again,” Smid called when they dragged Erik away between them.

Erik shook his head. What could Smid do that was more horrible than blasting peaceful, beautiful Alderaan to star dust?

–

Emma was lounging on a sofa in the Millennium Falcon's main hold. Xavier had proposed to move the talking there when he had been done cursing. Emma had agreed. They needed privacy for this talk and it would take too much time to go to her house and back again when they'd decided on what to do. And Emma knew, she wouldn't let Xavier go on his own. This could be her ticked off planet and she'd be damned if she'd let that pass.

“So,” Emma asked. “What are you doing to my droid?”

Xavier was kneeling before the astromech droid and doing something Emma couldn't see with its controls. “He's not your droid,” Xavier murmured.

“I found him, he's mine,” Emma waved his protest away.

“I'd rather say he found you.” Xavier was still focused on fumbling around with the droid. “And you said he had a message, for me?” He frowned. “Mags, if you could just link yourself to the Falcon, thank you.” The droid dutifully extended a retractable interface arm to link with the ship.

“A holovid,” Emma replied. “What are you doing that you haven't found it yet?”

“There's more important stuff in his memory, icy,” Xavier replied, looking down on the little screen next to the socket the droid had plugged itself into. “I need to copy this first.”

This got Emma interested. She should have searched the droid's memory before going to look for Xavier. But somehow, she hadn't even thought that there might be more than the holovid. Most droids of that class didn't have much memory aside from that they needed to repair ships. “What's more important than your friend?”

“What he actually meant to send, of course,” Xavier murmured. “Shit, the encryption is good. What did the message say?”

Emma sighed. “To go find you, because, apparently, you're his only hope,” she snorted. “Which is, if you don't mind me saying, pretty desperate and adorable at the same time. Asking someone like you for rescue. You don't strike me like the knight in the white armor kind of guy.”

Xavier laughed. “Well, I'm not.”

“Then why come to you in the first place?” Emma watched Xavier fumble with the screen, then pressing some more buttons on the droid.

“Because he thinks I could get him get out of an Imperial holding cell, maybe,” Xavier sighed. “Which I might. Maybe. If we're really, really lucky.” He leaned back, propping himself on his arms. “And maybe it has a little bit to do with me being his only friend.”

Emma raised one of her perfectly trimmed eyebrows. “You're _friends_ with that flat ass?”

Xavier coughed. “Something like that.”

“So you really do fuck him?” Emma smirked.

“What? No, dear god, no,” Xavier laughed. “We've met once. When we were kids. And then...” He shrugged. “We kept in touch. That's all.”

“That's all,” Emma echoed. She didn't believe him for one second. “How did you meet? Must have been something really special if you still care for him after all those years.”

“We met at a party,” Xavier explained. “Some social event. I can't remember the purpose anymore. Well, Erik was the only other child my age at that party and so I thought it would be nice to talk to him. He didn't but I was... a little persistent. So we ended up by a window, laughing and playing some games and he showed me Magneto here.” Xavier patted the droid. “I guess we just were two lonely boys who thought because we felt the same were the same and would be great friends.” He let out a long sigh. “Growing up proved how wrong we were. We haven't met in person since. I know he kept tabs on me, my... let's call it career.” For a second, his eyes flickered away from his screen and to the door his hairy companion had left through. “I know he did because I did the same. It's not really difficult to come up with information about Erik. With him being a Prince and all.” Xavier shook his head and laughed. “I should have seen it coming that he would get himself in trouble.”

“So we're going to rescue your childhood sweetheart? How cute,” Emma smirked.

Xavier raised his head and looked at her. “We?”

Emma's smirk widened. No answer was as good as any answer. “I'm coming with you,” she stated. “And that's final.” She considered the ship. “Looking at this piece of scrap metal, I just hope we'll get there first.”

“No, you're not,” Xavier huffed, crossing his arms in front of his chest and glared at her. “You expect me to take you aboard after you insulted my poor baby? Shame on you, she's much better than she looks.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Either you take me with you or I leave and I will take my droids with me.”

“Mags is not your droid,” Xavier reminded her. He was still glaring.

“Oh sugar, I found him,” Emma smiled. “Rules on this planet say he is.”

“You'll only be in the way,” Charles harrumphed.

“I assure you, I won't.” Emma sat up and shifted a little towards Xavier. “I could even be of use.”

“What can you do that Logan and I can't do between us?” Xavier asked.

Emma picked at the front of her tunic as if to remove some invisible dirt. “I could come up with the usual and obvious, but how about this,” Emma said. She had no idea if she should trust Xavier with this, but it was as good as any. “I can tell when people say things they don't mean.”

Xavier reacted like everyone else would. He laughed. But there was a subtle pause before he did. Emma wouldn't normally have noticed it. However, she noticed the spike of interest coming off him. “This is ridiculous,” Xavier said when he stopped laughing.

“You think it's interesting,” Emma countered. She wasn't normally as sure as she was about Charles' reaction. He did believe her. “And I'm also good with machines, even though they always get my hands dirty and oil is incredibly hard to get off anything. This might come in very handy on a flying trash can like this.”

“I keep telling you she is not...!” Xavier sighed when they were interrupted by the intercom and his surely flea infested buddy growling something that caused Xavier to curse and leap to his feet. “I hope you didn't plan on packing,” he called before he sprinted down the hallway leading to the ship's cockpit.

Emma wondered what was wrong. She could sit here and wait until somebody explained everything to her. Or she could just follow Xavier and see for herself. Needless to say it didn't even take her a minute to reach the cockpit. It was a small room, just big enough for the two seats of pilot and co-pilot and a little space between the backs of said chairs and the door. The controls looked outdated.

“What's happening?” Emma asked, leaning down on Xavier's chair.

“Our friends from the bar are back,” Xavier answered, before he hailed the tower to request take-up. “Sorry, dear, but I'm afraid we have to leave now. If you don't want to stay, please leave now.”

“In other words, if I don't leave, you will have to take me with you,” Emma smirked. “Sounds fine to me.”

Xavier sighed. “Of course it does.”

He looked up through the cockpit window to the slowly opening gates of the underground hangar he had parked his ship in. Emma followed his gaze. It would take another minute or so until the gates would be open wide enough for them to take off. She looked back down to the men yelling at the hangar's employees. They wouldn't last another minute. Emma sighed. “We are your board canons?”

“Down the hall, can't miss them,” Xavier answered. “Why?” he added, but Emma had already left the cockpit.

Xavier was right. It was hard to miss the entrance to the tubes leading to the Millennium Falcon's quad laser cannons if one followed the hallway from the cockpit to the end. Emma had just opened the tube, when Xavier came running after her. “What are you doing?” he hissed.

“Buying us some time,” Emma answered, shaking her arm from Xavier's grip.

“By shooting innocent people?”

Emma smirked. “No, by threatening to shoot not so innocent people.”

“You can't just do this,” Xavier snapped. “This is my ship, if you don't want me to throw you out on the nearest god forsaken moon, you play by my rules.”

“And what kind of rules would that be?” Emma asked. She could hear the engines turning on, preparing for take-off.

“We don't shoot people without a reason,” Xavier snapped. “And I hope I made myself clear. I'm needed in the cockpit.” With that, he rushed back off.

Emma climbed up the tube and into the gun's seat anyway. The ship was hovering a few feet above the ground but the gates still weren't open wide enough for them to really take off. Xavier's friends had managed to get past the hangar employees and were now running towards the ship. Emma opened up a communications channel so her voice would be broadcasted to the outside.

“Stand back or I will shoot the next person that moves,” she drawled, slowly repositioning the gun's barrel to point at the rogues. They stopped immediately. “Good boys.”

For a second, Emma thought about shooting them anyway, just for good measure but Xavier had sounded like he had meant it when he'd said he would throw her off the ship if she did. He hadn't said anything about threatening, though, so she guessed this must be fine.

She kept the barrel pointed at Xavier's friends until the hangar gates above had opened and they were taking off. Emma let out a relieved sigh. The ship soon left the atmosphere, the blue sky slowly but surely fading and then darkening again until they were surrounded by black nothingness with few white specks far off. She turned around, to watch Tatooine as they were leaving it behind.

She should have felt sad at the view.

 


	4. Chapter 3

Erik had no idea how long he had been in the holding cell. It could already be days. He didn't care anymore. He hadn't been able to save Alderaan, he hadn't been able to stop Smid from destroying his home, kill most of his friends, his people. Kill his parents.

For the first few hours, Erik had been angry. He had been angry at Smid, for giving the order to shoot at the planet. He had been angry at the men who followed that order. But, worse, he was mostly angry at himself for not stopping any of it, of surviving when he should have died with his planet. Or he should have at least tried harder to stop, no kill Smid.

And where the hell was Charles when he needed him. He had sent his message to Charles ages ago. He should be here by now. Where ever here was. This whole station, ship, whatever it was, looked suspiciously like the blueprints he had stolen. The blueprints Charles hopefully possessed now.

Erik stood up and kicked the wall.

If Charles was any more brighter than him, and Erik had always suspected he was, he wouldn't come to his rescue. Erik sighed. Charles should hand the blueprints to the rebellion against the Empire and get back to his smuggling business. Smid was not a man he wanted Charles near to.

Erik must have fallen asleep, at least once or twice. He didn't know for sure. What he did know was that he had stopped in his pacing the cell a few times. He had searched the cell. Tried to find some way out or at least something to do. There just wasn't anything he could do.

He had searched every inch of wall and floor for maintenance access points but of course there were none. He even had tried giving the wall where he assumed the cell door's locking mechanism to be located a good kick. Nothing happened but he hadn't anything expected to happen anyway. It was frustrating.

Eventually, he sat down on the hard bed the cell provided. It could have been a long time until the sound of the door opening dragged him out of his silent brooding. Two Stormtroopers entered, flanking him and dragging him to his feet. “The commander wants to see you,” one of them said.

Erik huffed. He knew he had no choice here, he knew fighting would be useless, but he still tried to struggle against his captor's hold. All good it did him was a sharp elbow in his solar plexus that drove all the air out of Erik's lungs. He hung limply between the Stormtroopers escorting him down another endless row of sterile hallways, stumbling to keep up with their steps.

What could Darth Smid want with him this soon again. Erik steeled himself for more torture. He couldn't imagine Smid wanting anything else but for him to betray the rebellion. A thing he wouldn't do willingly. Erik forced himself to concentrate on the hum of the ship around him. This routine had helped him many times before when he had been nervous. When he had been a child, he had imagined he could feel the parts of ships or the beams of highrises around him, could hear metal sing to him. Growing up, he had realized how foolish that was, but it was still a comforting thought.

This time, he wasn't lead to the bridge. The Stormtroopers led him into a richly decorated room. There was a purple rug on the floor, some oil paintings on the wall showing mostly galaxies and planets of the inner rim. The whole room screamed old fashioned and revoltingly rich and bad taste. Erik was almost immediately sure this was one of Smid's private rooms. Beside everything else it was screaming, it also screamed Smid's name so loud Erik was afraid he was going deaf from it.

Erik was lead to a chair with red upholstery at a small, yet massive wooden table. He was forced to sit down with a nudge of one of the Stormtroopers' blaster rifles. They fastened shackles around both Erik's wrists before they connected the rather long chain between them to another chain running along the underside of the plate of the table. Then they left.

Erik wasn't alone for long, though. He only had a few minutes to wonder what was going on. He tried in vain to break the cuffs around his wrists. They didn't really budge but he felt them, felt them running to the other side of the table. There was another chair there. Erik tried to concentrate on the chain. As long as there was nothing else in the world but the chain, nothing would be able to hurt Erik, not even Smid.

Smid entered the room a little while later, followed by two droids carrying trays of food. One was put in front of Erik, the other on the other side of the table. Smid took his seat and smiled at Erik while the droids set the table, complete with a burning candle in the middle. Speaking of old fashioned.

“Good evening, my sweet boy,” Smid drawled once the droids had left again. “It's so lovely of you to join me for dinner.”

Erik grit his teeth.

“You don't want to talk?” Smid asked. “Fine with me. I do hope you don't mind me making conversation then.” He started cutting the palm-sized beef on his plate in palatable pieces. “Help yourself to some food. I can assure you it's delicious and definitely not poisoned.”

Erik's stomach growled as if he needed the reminder as to when he had last eaten. Though, he kept his lips pressed together in a thin line.

“You really don't want to eat?” Smid asked, putting his knife down and speared a piece of meat onto his fork. “I don't want to rush you but it is getting cold. You should really try it while it's still hot.”

“What if I don't want to?” Erik asked. He wanted to sound defiant but it came out rather insecure. He had no cards in this game and he still tried to bluff.

“Then don't,” Smid said, licking his lips. Looking at Erik, he started to laugh, a cold, not exactly happy sound. “What did you expect? That I would threaten to blow up Caamas as well? Or Corfo? Tepasi?”

Erik swallowed dry. This had been exactly what he had been expecting. Carefully, Erik took his fork up. It was metal as well, the weight comfortable and smooth in his hand. He felt instantly more relaxed. The vegetables on the side were perfectly done and tasted heavenly, almost as good as the cooks at home had done them. Erik felt a sharp pang in his chest thinking about Alderaan.

“See, was it that hard to take a bite?” Smid asked, still smiling. Erik wouldn't like anything better than to punch that smile off his face. “How does it taste?”

“It's good,” Erik lied. It was delicious, would even have been if he hadn't been starved. He took another slow bite. It would have been great food if it weren't for the company.

“You know, darling boy, I meant it when I said I wanted you to join me,” Smid smiled. “Me and you, together, we could do great things. The greatest, I'm sure. There's so much potential in you. All you have to do is agree to join me, join my side in this ridiculous civil war. You understand as well as I do how pointless that little rebellion is. A child's game, really. You should start to grow out of it now.”

Erik's hand clenched around the fork. He hadn't even touched the beef yet. He doubted he would. His stomach had started to revolt again at Smid's proposal. Slowly, his eyes fixed on Smid, Erik put down the fork lest he tried to throw it at Smid. If not for the cuffs, he might already have. “How...” Erik gritted out between his teeth. “Why do you think I could be won over this easily? With nice food? You killed my people!”

“Oh, Erik, are you still not over that yet?” Smid grinned. “I should really test the superlaser on yet another planet until you learned that lesson. No one is really important but us.”

Erik was on his feet before he had even processed what he was doing. “You wouldn't dare!” he hissed.

Smid merely tutted at Erik before he reached under the table. Erik felt a hard yank on the shackles around his wrists and stumbled forward, crashing chin first against the table. He was lucky he didn't bite his tongue. “Oh dear boy, have you not yet realized what situation you're in?” Smid sighed. He held the chain so short Erik had slipped off the chair and was now on his knees, arms outstretched. Smid would be able to kick him in the face without having to bother to get up or even stretch, Erik realized. He swallowed.

“You know, darling boy, I really meant my offer,” Smid sighed. “But if you're not yet willing, you leave me no other choice than to give you some more encouragement to join me in my plans. We all can benefit.” Erik could hear the drag of cutlery against porcelain. It was as if Smid didn't even care that he was holding Erik in a very uncomfortable, vulnerable position with one hand.

Erik's face burned with shame and, now that he couldn't have something to eat any more, his hunger was back, clawing at his intestines. Smid ignored him for the rest of his dinner. He took his time, Erik was sure. The sick creep was probably getting off on this whole situation and was just waiting for Erik to cave. Well, he could wait until the last stars of the Core ran out of fuel. Erik wouldn't give in.

He just hoped Smid wouldn't make it too hard for him.

–

Emma was bored. They were already flying for hours and neither Xavier nor his hairy friend had bothered to come out of the cockpit. She had the vague impression that Xavier was sulking. Just because she had threatened a handful of thugs, seriously, they were just as bad as Tusken raiders, really, what was the big deal Xavier was making out of it.

Xavier hadn't even deigned to tell her where they were heading. She could hear the hum of the hyperdrive, so it must be a long distance—long distance, that was for interstellar travel where practically any distance was a fucking long distance. They might even leave the outer rim during this journey.

“Mistress Emma, do you where we are going?” Hank suddenly piped up. And Emma just had forgotten they had taken the droid with them. She almost missed the silence already.

Emma shook her head. “Do you?” she said instead of an answer.

“Magneto-”Emma snorted at the mention of the astromech droid's name”-said he's from Alderaan. Do you think we're headed there?”

“Possible,” Emma shrugged. “It would only make sense. We don't know were they have taken that Prince once they had him captured. Starting to look for him there would be as good as any.”

“Exactly,” Xavier piped in from where he was leaning in the door frame. “Just what I came to explain now.”

Emma crooked an eyebrow at him. “Done sulking already, sugar?”

“I wasn't sulking,” Xavier shot back. “Plotting such a long course isn't something done in minutes.” He was lying, Emma knew. Or, almost knew, she wasn't sure. That was new to her. She had never been anything less than sure when it came to people lying. Or their thoughts in general, really. Xavier, however, remained a riddle, no matter how hard she tried to figure him out.

“How long until we reach Alderaan and can start looking for your Princess?” she asked, bored already of arguing about him sulking or not.

“A few days,” Xavier shrugged. “And he's most definitely not my princess.”

Emma smirked. “Of course not, sugar, of course not. He's just a boy you met at a party when you were young and couldn't forget since.”

Xavier shook his head. “You overestimate his charm,” he sighed, walking over to take a seat on the couch around the table next to her. “Good looks don't make up for a bad character. And I have to say, I've met people far more fascinating than him since that day.” He looked at her for a moment as he said it.

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Emma replied. There was no ice in her words though, not even she could deny that Xavier was very handsome. “Why would you say he's a bad character?”

Xavier shrugged. “He's an asshole,” he said, but his voice sounded more fond and defeated than really angry. “He's ruthless and stubborn and single-minded, unbelievably so.”

“And yet you still like him enough to rush to his rescue on just a seconds notice,” Emma observed. “Seems to me like you have a thing for single-minded, stubborn assholes.”

“What makes you think it's not the ruthless part he's got going for himself?” Xavier purred.

Emma smirked back at him. “Because that would mean you'd like me as well, sugar.”

“Who said I didn't?” He sounded so perfectly innocent it made Emma laugh.

The entrance of one very smug looking—and just as hairy—pilot saved Emma from having to answer that. Sure she couldn't deny that Xavier was handsome and interesting enough, but she definitely shouldn't tell him so. It would no doubt give him the wrong ideas.

“I am so sorry, my dear, it seems like I'm needed in the cockpit,” Xavier excused himself, before he hurried off. Emma didn't mind and just shooed him off before he could think of something stupid like asking her to join him there. The less he was around her the more time she had to hack into his systems and take a look at the data he had downloaded from _her_ astromech droid.

–

It took Emma almost the whole trip to find the data. Whatever Xavier had going on, he had some very serious encrypting in his system. It looked like being a smuggler demanded his ship's data to be kept as save as possible was well as his illegal freight well hidden. She was just glad she wasn't all that bad at hacking. It was difficult enough to do it without Xavier or his furry buddy watching her, she would never have had enough time if she had to think too much about how to work around the security.

Not that the data was worth it in the end. From what she could see, all the data the astromech droid had were the blueprints of a very large ship, or at least something like that. If the scales were correct, that thing would be as huge as a small moon. Whoever felt like he needed something like this, with weapon systems powerful enough to wipe out entire fleets or—if they felt daring—maybe whole planets, would be up to no good. And compensating for something.

She felt Xavier entering the room more than she heard him and quickly let the blueprints vanish from her datapad. The look on Xavier's face had her instantly alarmed. “What's wrong?” she asked, getting up.

Xavier shook his head. He was pale—or, well, paler than usual. Something had unsettled him and if Emma thought one thing about him then that Xavier was no one to be shaken easily. “We reached,” he swallowed. “Alderaan.” He shook his head. “You should see this.”

She followed Captain Xavier back to the cockpit. His pilot Logan didn't even react to their entrance. He was staring through the window. Emma gasped when she understood what she was seeing. “That's...that's Alderaan?” she asked, staring out at the cloud of dust and debris in front of them. “This is where Alderaan was supposed to be?”

“This...” Xavier sighed. His expression hardened. “We're pretty sure this was Alderaan. Something destroyed the entire planet. We were able to receive some distress signals from inhabitants that had been able to flee. Some of them told us about a second moon that suddenly appeared and then attacked with what looked like a blaster shot, but much stronger and a lot bigger.”

Emma swore. There were times to act cold and unfazed, but not when you were staring at what was left of an entire planet, with billions of people living on it.

She was surprised when Xavier joined her cursing, though. He sat in his chair, fanatically hammering on buttons. Beside him, Logan growled, doing the same. “Emma, go and get yourself a blaster from hold three. Hurry!” Xavier yelled at her. “We've got company! And I doubt they'll be all that friendly.” He cursed again. “Okay, they're pulling us in. That's at least something. Emma, GO!”

Emma turned, hurrying off to the quarters where she kept her blaster. Who ever wanted to knock at their door she didn't want to face them without a weapon. Xavier followed her shortly after, calling out for Magneto as he started to open the floor of one of the hallways, only to reveal hidden extra storage.

“Neat,” Emma commented as she strapped the blaster to her belt. Xavier was now busy lowering the droid down into the space.

“Necessary,” Xavier corrected. “Can't be smugglers with only the freight in plain sight now, can we?”

Emma peered down in the space. There would be room enough for Hank or maybe even herself. She considered this for a moment. “You don't plan on hiding in there yourself, do you?” she asked.

“No,” Xavier answered, before he paused. “However, it would be a good idea,” he asked. “Not me, though. Or Logan for that matter. But you on the other hand...” He considered Emma for a long while, before he nodded. “I guess we're thinking the same.”

“Whoever this is—and I'd bet it's the Empire—will take prisoners,” Emma said. “Or they would have shot us to bits instead of pulling us in with their tractor beam. They might expect somebody to be on board...”

“Or even know it's my ship,” Charles interjected. “I haven't been...really subtle in the beginning. Or careful. Someone in the Empire might still remember me and Logan.”

Emma nodded. That was about what she'd figured. She didn't know what exactly had happened, but sometimes, there were words, or even just looks between Xavier and his pilot that indicated that they weren't too fond of the Empire themselves and that it had something to do with how they'd met. “So, it would have to be me hiding down there,” Emma said. “Is it ventilated? Can I open it from the inside?”

Xavier nodded. “Yes to both,” he smiled. “So you hide here, see if we get taken to their brig and come to our rescue. That would save us the trouble to find the holding cells. I'm sure if this ship is what I think it is, Erik might be here as well.”

“Nothing better than shooting unsuspecting Stormtroopers in the back,” Emma grinned. “And we can't risk to all be taken prisoner.”

“So you wait here until the ship is quiet again,” Xavier said. “Then you come after us. We'll keep ready to help you with that, of course. After that...”

“Find and rescue the princess,” Emma smiled. “Should be a piece of cake.”

“Someone will have to disable their tractor beam if we want to get out of here in the end,” Xavier mused. “But I guess we'll have to see about that when we get there.”

“Between the two of us, I'm sure we'll figure out something when we'll need to,” Emma agreed. She took Xavier's offered hand and let him help her down. “Hey, Xavier,” she said as she settled next to the astromech droid. “Take care, sugar.” For a moment, she waited, looking at Xavier and considering if her next move would be a wise one. Then again, he really was gorgeous and she enjoyed the way he plotted. So she reached up before she could think better of it and pulled his face down to hers.

The kiss only lasted seconds, far less than the look they exchanged afters. Emma could be imagining it but it felt like they were having a mental discussion of this kind of thing. Not that it was needed. It was obvious they were thinking the same. Emma let go of Xavier.

He straightened again immediately, looking a little flushed. “Well, see you soon,” he said, his tone light to play what little insecurity he felt down. “And Emma? Call me Charles, please.”

A minute later, Emma was sitting in the dark, waiting for heavy footsteps above announcing their captors.

 


	5. Chapter 4

Emma waited in the dark. She didn't have to wait for long though before the ship rocked gently as it touched down in what she supposed was the hangar of the bigger whatever-the-hell-it-was, ship or station. The astromech droid let out a low, worried whistle. She shushed it with a glare.

The men that entered the Falcon came as a shock for her. After days in the company of two droids and two men she for some reason couldn't get much of a read on and only could feel when she really focused, sensing the anxiety and surprise and forced self-confidence with which the small troop of soldiers entered the ship was a surprise. At least that meant her ability was still intact. Not that she'd doubted that. Just a little. It was unsettling how bad she was at sensing Xavier.

She waited. Apparently, from what she got of the soldiers, Xavier was talking to them and whatever he was saying, it did nothing to comfort them. Soon enough, four of them left again. Emma could only guess but she assumed they took Logan and Xa-fuck no, he was Charles, she should be thinking of him as Charles with them. For a second, she felt utterly alone.

Then, soon, she was too busy holding her breath in anticipation to worry too much about anyone else. She could feel the soldiers searching the ship. It was meticulous work and they took their time but the Falcon just wasn't that big. Luckily for her, the crate she was hiding in could only be found if you know it was there. Or at least, they didn't find it. Her grip around the blaster got tighter when she felt two of them passing over her head. Her thoughts focused on a litany of _go away there's nothing here go away don't listen too closely to how your steps sound a little different here_. They passed without even halting in their step once.

Emma was relieved when she felt most of them leave about ten minutes later. Ten minutes was nothing much, she hoped. Not enough time to get Charles and Logan somewhere she wouldn't be able to rescue them from. If such a place existed. She had yet to find a place she couldn't get to if she was determined.

Careful not to make a sound she opened the crate again. Two of them had stayed behind, but she was sure she could easily overpower them with the moment of surprise on her side and two well aimed blaster shots.

“You stay here,” she hissed at the droid. It didn't respond which she took as silent agreement. Without another glance at it she climbed out and sneaked to the main hold just around the curve of the hallway. She raised her blaster and had it aimed at the first of the two stormtroopers before they even saw her. He was down by the time she shot the second one. The fight was over before it even had begun. Emma was very pleased with herself.

She walked over to the fallen men. One of them was possibly dead, but the other was just stunned. She couldn't risk leaving them here out in the open, she thought. So she removed the dead man's uniform first. As much as she was loath to even think about it, it would be easier to walk around the ship and free Charles if she just blended in. After that, she dragged both men over to the secret compartments and dropped the men inside one of them. The astromech droid commented that with an impressed whistle.

“I haven't forgotten you, sugar,” She rolled her eyes. It took almost as much effort to get him out of there as it had been to drag the men over and dump them. “There you go,” she finally said, putting Magneto down on the floor again. “You stay here. Go find Hank and keep out of trouble. Understood? If you get lost, I won't come after you.” It was an empty threat, really, but one she was used to.

The droid whistled and beeped its understanding. Emma nodded. At least there was one sensible droid in her life.

Emma was in no hurry to get into the uniform because neither did she ever hurry nor would she ever want to get into any stinking uniform. Aside from that she was as fast as she could. At least she could keep on her clothes under the uniform to keep it from touching of her skin. One of the blaster rifles she had obtained from the shot men in hand, she embarked from the ship to find Charles and Logan so they could start figuring out how to save the princess.

She was glad she had taken a look at the blueprints. This had to be the ship build from the blueprints. Anything else just didn't make any sense. So she at least had a general idea in which direction to head for the holding cells of the ship.

Nobody paid her any attention. Of course not, it was impossible to tell she wasn't one of them under the helmet and in that uniform. As long as she looked like she had a purpose—which she always did because she was never less than determined to have everything her way and the knowledge that she was right about that—nobody would stop her.

Charles and Logan were surprisingly easy to find. She hadn't been walking long into the direction where she believed the holding cells to be when she heard fighting ahead. She found Logan wrestling with two of their guards, their rifles out of any of their reaches. A third was down and looked like he was out cold. Charles was fighting with the last one, both of them trying to get a good grip at the Stormtrooper's blaster rifle. Emma was impressed.

She was a lot less impressed when Logan had knocked out one of his opponents by banging his head on the floor and noticed her. The growl rippling from his throat made even Emma back off a step. She raised her rifle. If that idiot wanted to lunge at her, she would be ready. She could feel the aggression radiating from him. But then she remembered whose side she was supposed to be on, just as Charles yelled at Logan, “Don't! Look behind you!”

Logan didn't have to. Emma had seen his last opponent readying himself to overpower Logan and she hadn't wasted a second to think. Instead, she had pointed her rifle at the Stormtrooper and pulled the trigger. Here's to hoping the short range would make up for the shitty precision of the things. The look on Logan's face was definitely worth it, she thought. Forever and ever would she remember how he looked when he was slack-jawed and taken entirely by surprise.

As he posed no danger to her for now, she turned to help Charles as well, only to find him kneeling panting next to a motionless Stormtrooper. Apparently he had managed to knock out his opponent while both she and Logan had been distracted. Now that Charles was safe as well, Emma could relax a little. It didn't last more than a few seconds though. Logan was already turning his attention back at her.

“Would you stop that!” Charles snapped. “It's just Emma. Though I must say, dear, the idea of wearing the uniform of these guys here is rather brilliant.”

Emma had no idea how he could tell it was her, but she lowered her rifle and nodded. She wondered if she should take off her helmet but then decided against it. “Are we done shilly-shallying here?” she asked. “We got a princess to rescue, don't we?”

“Just a minute,” Charles laughed. He was already busy stripping the Stormtrooper he had knocked out and putting his uniform on.

Emma glanced at Logan with a raised eyebrow. “I doubt he'll fit,” she said.

Logan snarled something at her that sounded a lot like an insult in whatever language he spoke—if those growls and grumbles did qualify as such. But Charles nodded and sighed, “I'm afraid you're right. Logan, would you mind playing our prisoner? It would give us a good excuse to walk into the brig as well.”

Logan whined. Damn, he even tried to look like a hurt puppy. Emma had a hard time not to laugh at his expression. Charles, almost dressed in the ridiculous white armor like uniform sans helmet for now, just looked at him for a long while. Curiously, that was enough to get Logan to back off.

“Very well,” Charles declared and Emma was surprised he didn't clap his hands together. Maybe it was just because he was busy putting the helmet on. “Let's go. We shouldn't keep Erik waiting any longer.”

Emma snorted but didn't comment on it. She could mock him for being overeager to save his princess later.

–

Noises from the hallway beyond the door of his cell had Erik jerk awake. The first thought he had was they were coming to get him yet again and bring him back to Smid so he could have some more fun with him. He didn't want to. He'd rather Smid just killed him. It didn't matter that torture was meant to break him, what Smid was doing was just sick. And Erik sure as hell would never give in and join Smid.

Erik sat up just as the door opened and two Stormtroopers came in, followed by...

“Logan?!” Erik gasped. By now, he had realized that the sounds he had heard had been the sound of a short fight. “What the hell are you doing here? Have you gotten yourself captured as well?”

Logan raised an eyebrow at him and let out a low growl, before he nodded at both the Stormtroopers and smirked. What the hell, Erik thought. Before he could ask, the taller one of the two nudged the other and retreated to the door, probably to stand guard. Erik glared at the remaining Stormtrooper.

“What do you want?” Erik demanded to know, crossing his arms in front of his chest and giving the Stormtrooper his best glare. If this was one of Smid's games, he wasn't willing to just play along. With Logan's help it should be easy to subdue a single Stormtrooper. Especially one that was so stupid to leave Logan with his hands untied.

However, it turned out that wouldn't be necessary. The Stormtrooper slowly raised his hands to his helmet, taking it off with his face turned away from Erik so at first all he could see was a mop of perfect brown hair. Only after he had shaken it out again, he turned to Erik who could only gape at Charles.

“Surprise,” the smuggler smirked.

“What are you doing here?!” Erik felt a panic bubbling up in his chest. Charles couldn't be here, shouldn't be anywhere near Smid, not if Erik could help it. The Empire was still looking for him. What Smid would do to him if he got his hands on the deserter... Erik didn't want to even think about it.

“What am I doing here?” Charles laughed. “It was you who had asked for my help. I came because you called me. But if you don't want to be rescued, we can leave right away.”

“You...I...” Erik was struggling for words. Leaving right away sounded like a good plan but there were things that needed to be said first, things like _We'd better hurry, Smid's on the ship_ or _I'm glad you came_ or _If I had known in what a mess I was in, I hadn't asked for your help_. Erik just didn't know where to start. Instead, he gripped him by the turtle neck of the horrible uniform Charles was wearing and pulled him closer, not knowing whether to punch or to kiss him.

However, he never had time to make that decision. As soon as he had grabbed Charles, the other Stormtrooper poked his head into the cell. “Are you done making out? We'd better get moving,” a female voice asked. Erik quickly let go of Charles. The grin Logan shot him was utterly unsettling.

“Who's that?” Erik asked as Charles handed him the blaster rifle he had been carrying. So Charles still preferred his own blaster, Erik noticed. Good to know some things never changed. Logan picked up another blaster rifle from one of the Stormtroopers in the hallway outside the cell they had apparently subdued to get to him.

“Emma,” Charles introduced. “She's...”

“The one who kissed your boy,” Emma interrupted. She had taken off her helmet and was sorting through her long blond curls. “Sorry, Princess, I thought it would be better to start off honest with you lest you find out later and be offended.”

Erik whipped around to Charles. “She what?” he hissed.

“Can we talk about this later?” Charles sighed, shooting Emma a brief glare. Whatever they had going on between them, it wasn't in the honey moon phase anymore. Small mercies. “Please.”

“Fine,” Erik growled. “But later, we are going to talk about it.” He, too, was glaring at Emma. The worst part was she wasn't even looking half bad. If you were into women, she could even be seen as quite attractive from what Erik could guess in her current getup. Even he had to admit he couldn't hold it against Charles to be attracted to her. He just hoped she had an awful character so he wouldn't have to feel too bad for hating her guts for no reason at all.

Erik was still glaring at the back of Emma's head when a blaster shot whizzed past. There was some cursing as all of them ducked into various doorways. At least the ship provided very convenient cover just about everywhere. As if it had been build for blaster fights.

“You couldn't have come for my rescue causing less of a ruckus,” Erik muttered through his teeth. He raised his blaster rifle to fire back at the stormtroopers. He didn't like how many of them there were. By the time they won this fight—if they even could win this fight—every last soldier on this goddamn ship would know about the jail break. “Please tell me it isn't far to that ship of yours.”

“Could be further,” Charles snapped back, taking out one Trooper with a well aimed shot. “There's just one tiny little problem.”

“Isn't there always?” Erik groaned. He shot at the one Trooper that had been so stupid to peek out of his cover, before pressing back against the wall behind him to avoid getting shot himself. Behind him, an explosion went off.

“We might have to disable this ship's tractor beam before we'll be able to leave,” Charles admitted.

“Splendid.” Erik rolled his eyes. “Good to know that your plans are still as well thought out as always.”

“What do you mean by that?” The way Charles fired his blaster this time made it look like he'd very much like to shoot Erik and only shot at the advancing Stormtroopers because they were a much more convenient target. “My plans always work out well in the end!”

“Like the time you decided it would be a great idea to terminate your career just so you could save that fuzzball over there,” Erik huffed. That was something he still hasn't forgiven Charles for. It still felt too much like betrayal on his end. “No offense meant, Logan,” Erik added in an afterthought.

Logan responded with a long growl that could either mean 'none taken' or 'say that again and I'll shoot you without warning'.

“Are you guys done bickering now?” Emma called out. “While you were busy being useless, I found us a way out, you know?” She was standing next to a hole in the wall, glaring at them.

“Where does it lead?” Charles asked, peering into the darkness as well as he could.

“Out of here,” Emma replied. “Shouldn't that be enough for us for now?” Just in that moment a blaster shot hit the wall next to Erik.

“I'm with her,” he said, hurrying over to her and the hole in the wall. “The sooner we're out of here the better.”

“Without knowing where it leads?” Charles reminded them. “What if we're off worse down there?”

“I doubt we can be off worse anywhere,” Emma said. “And I think I saw this shaft in the plans. It leads only one or two decks down into an empty room with an exit. No big deal.” Charles raised an eyebrow, just as Erik hissed, “Great, not only did you kiss her, you even showed her the secret blue prints, well done, Charles, really.”

In the end, it was Logan who settled the discussion by growling at all of them, before he climbed into the shaft and then vanished. A thud followed, then a long whine. “See, he says it's all save,” Emma smirked. “Now get down there.” She empathized her words by shooting two stormtroopers in short succession. “It's getting too crowded up here.”

Erik eyed the two of them. “See you in a minute.” It was a bit awkward to get his legs and then his body in the narrow shaft but he somehow managed. The drop was shorter than he had feared. Emma must be right, it couldn't be more than one or two decks down. Erik was glad he didn't land on Logan when he got down. However, instead of landing on Logan, he landed in some stinking, oily liquid. Erik gagged, much to Logan's amusement, as he stumbled out of the way. “Oh shut up, you flea infested walking carpet,” Erik muttered which made Logan only laugh more. He tried breathing through his nose. It didn't help. He could _taste_ the smell.

Charles arrived shortly after him, coughing and gagging even more miserably than Erik had done. Erik and Logan were just quick enough in pulling him aside to avoid being hit by Emma, who just wrinkled her nose at the smell and looked at the liquid as if it was a personal insult to her. Erik could imagine she truly felt like that. She was just the kind of woman who would believe the universe should arrange to her tastes. Having known her for all but five minutes was enough to tell that much.

“And now what?” Erik asked when all of them were breathing normally again.

“Now, we leave.” Emma rolled her eyes. She pointed to the door.

Erik had already opened his mouth to snap at her, when Charles nudged him in the side. “Just come on,” Charles muttered, pulling Erik with him to the door. The door, which, as it turned out upon closer inspection, didn't have a lock on this side. Or a control pad. In fact, there was nothing that would indicate the door could be opened from this side at all.

Just when they had made sure they hadn't just overlooked the control pad, Logan growled. Charles and Erik exchanged an alarmed look. That was about two seconds before a tentacle appeared out of the water, grabbed Emma and pulled her under.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [Isabella](http://archiveofourown.org/users/issabella) for betaing parts of this chapter (or was it the next?)


	6. Chapter 5

“Shit!” Charles cursed right next to Erik. All things considered, that was a pretty weak reaction and Erik would have called Charles out for it if they hadn't both been busy to raise their respective weapons and point it where Emma had disappeared into the water. Erik was just about to shoot when Charles held out his arm in a way Erik would have accused him of trying to grope his chest if he'd been a woman. “What?” Erik growled.

“What if we hit her?” Charles asked. His gaze was searching the murky waters for any sign of either Emma or the tentacles but it was impossible to see anything that wasn't directly under the surface. His blaster followed some movement that Erik couldn't see. Or maybe Charles was just moving it because he was nervous.

“What if we don't even try and she drowns?” Erik snapped back. It wasn't like he suddenly liked Emma. But you didn't just let somebody drown that had rescued you from death and torture. Not even to somebody who has kissed your... who had kissed Charles. Erik readied himself to shoot.

Blaster fire painted the murky waters red. Charles and Erik exchanged a confused look. There were splashes as tentacles shot up. They wriggled in the air for a second before they retreated underwater again. A long, pained hiss echoed through the room, followed by silence.

A cursing Emma appeared from the waters again, blaster rifle in hand, finger still curled around the trigger. She was out of breath which miraculously didn't stop her from using far worse curses than Erik would have thought possible, but looked otherwise fine. She even fired some more in the general direction of where the tentacles had disappeared. “What the fuck was that?” she hissed and spat. “Who the hell keeps something like **THAT** on his ship?”

“I don't know,” Charles slowly lowered his blasters. “Are you alright?”

“For now,” Emma replied. She still held her blaster ready, scanning the waters for any disturbance. Logan let out a low whine from where he had retreated to the corner nearest to Charles. Erik frowned. He didn't like this—and for once _this_ wasn't the way Charles cared for Emma. “Let's just get out of here already and I'll be much better.”

“There's just one problem with that...” The glare Emma shot him for being the bringer of bad news would have turned Erik's blood to ice if it hadn't been boiling. “That door has no freaking lock on this side.”

“Then just blast it down!” Emma snapped, wading over to them. She was still looking at where the tentacles had vanished. “I don't want to be here if that thing comes back. And it will.”

Erik turned back to the wall. He doubted they could blast their way through the durasteel even if they combined all the fire power they had. He had tried so before, when he had been younger and bored and angry. Blasters weren't enough for this kind of material. However, Emma had a point. They had to get out of here as quickly as possible. He let his fingers drift over the portion of the wall where he assumed the locking mechanism would be located. He hadn't done this in a long time and wasn't sure it would work. In fact, it hadn't worked when he had tried it in the holding cell. But it was worth a try.

Erik closed his eyes, focusing on what he thought he could faintly feel in the walls. Different metals, he had imagined as a child, hummed in different tunes. And now he was looking for a certain tune inside a much larger one. This never worked, he thought but pushed the thought back. It had to work.

Behind him, the water began to stir like it was about to boil. By now, he was vaguely aware of Emma and Logan having reached them. He could hear them readying their weapons again. Charles grabbed his shoulder and tried to pull him around, telling him that this wasn't the right time for whatever Erik was trying to do. Just when Charles' grip tightened with the intent to spin him around, Erik found what he had looking for, the special kind of hum he remembered associating with control pads.

“You really want to try this?” Charles asked. He sounded clear in his ear, even though the roar of whatever the tentacles had belonged to. Erik nodded. “Okay. Just... concentrate, alright? I trust you on this.”

Erik huffed. He shouldn't feel so much better just because Charles had told him he still trusted him, despite everything. Without any more hesitation, he focused on what he thought—no, what he knew he was feeling. Remembered, actively remembered the one day he had actually been able to move tiny metal objects around without touching them. Of a brief second, bright blue eyes and the golden gleam of the last rays of the evening sun on brown locks flickered before his inner eyes, the distraction somehow what he needed to get a grip around the mechanism.

It was exhausting, moving the mechanism only the few thou needed to activate the door. Erik knew if he wasn't careful he could break the door for good and they would be trapped here forever. He couldn't let himself get distracted by the blaster fire around him or the heavy thumbs of tentacles against the walls or the way the water hit his legs in waves, threatening to knock him off balance if he wasn't careful. Erik just hoped he really wasn't just imagining things.

He staggered, as something knocked him in the shoulder from behind. Erik braced himself against the wall, his hand never slipping from where he could feel the control pad. It was just a little more, a little push further, he knew this, damn the tentacles. The wall vibrated under yet another hit. Emma wasn't next to him anymore. Somewhere in the corner of his eye he could still see Charles hovering next to him, shooting well aimed blaster shots at any tentacle coming in their direction. Erik let out a slow breath. Something was moving inside the lock mechanism.

However, so was one of the tentacles and it was aimed directly at Erik. He heard Charles call his name, felt him trying to pull him out of the tentacles' way by his arm, but Erik couldn't let his concentration slip now, not now when he was convinced it would be only a matter of a few more seconds for him to open the door.

Cursing Erik's bloody single mindedness, Charles threw himself against Erik with all his weight, knocking him over and out of the way mere seconds before a tentacle hit the wall with a heavy blow just where Erik's head had been. “You bloody idiot!” Charles yelled. The way they had landed, Erik's face was barely above the waterline with Charles on top of him, their lips close enough for Erik just to lean up and kiss him. The way his lips moved when he was angry was rather distracting. “You almost got yourself killed!”

“Well, I'm still alive,” Erik said with defiance. “And I had that door almost open.”

“News flash, princess,” Emma called from somewhere Erik couldn't see. “You can scratch that almost. Now quit the dry humping and move your asses out here before that thing has you for lunch. Or is getting some popcorn to enjoy the show.”

Charles quickly scrambled off Erik. Neither of them could look at the other while they dodged one or two of the thick, red tentacles still trying to grab them or at least knock them over on their way out through the door. Logan and Emma were already waiting in the hallway on the other side. Now that they were almost out of harm's way—at least out of the way of the present harm—Erik had time to panic a little. That thing was huge and vicious, surely able to crush them with a single blow. They slid more than ran through the door, slipping a little from their momentum and wet boots on the clean floor, one of the slimmer tentacles close behind. The second they were through the door, though, Emma slammed her hand against the control pad, sealing the door shut.

“What the hell was that?” Emma asked. She watched the tentacle she had trapped in the door with cool interest.

“A... trash monster.” Charles was still struggling for breath. He was leaning against the wall, right next to where Erik had decided it would be a good place to sink down until his head stopped spinning from exhaustion. He always felt like that whenever he tried to manipulate metal, all the more so on the rare occasions it worked.

“No shit, captain,” Emma snorted. “Did you make that up just now?”

Charles shook his head. “I think that was a dianoga,” he said. “Commonly called trash monster. They get on board of ships as larvae and grow up in the trash chutes. I've never seen a live one before.”

Emma shot him a dubious look as if she wasn't sure whether he'd just made that up. She wrung out her hair and then sighed. “Are you two ready to move? I don't think we should stay here and wait to get caught. That would be somewhat beside the point of a prison break, don't you think?”

Charles nodded, but Erik shook his head. “Half a minute, please,” he groaned. Shaking his head had been a bad idea. It had prompted the hall to spin around him again. He leaned back against the wall with a sigh.

Emma muttered something that sounded an awful lot like “Princess indeed” that made Logan laugh under his breath. Mercifully, Charles spared him, though Erik could see the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “We should discuss how we split up first anyway,” he sighed. Charles pushed himself away from the wall and looked down the hall. “I can hear engines in that direction,” he pointed down one way. “So Logan and I will go that way and see if we find one of the links between the main reactor and the tractor beams. You go in the other direction and see to it that you get back to the Falcon.”

“Fine, whatever,” Emma shrugged. “Just watch out you don't get yourself killed when I'm not there to watch your pretty asses to save you.”

The smile with which Charles answered made Erik's stomach clench. Right, they had kissed, she had said. She might even be... whatever to Charles. Why else would he have brought her. She wasn't a member of the Millennium Falcon's sad little crew of two—or at least hadn't been a week ago. He got carefully back to his feet. “Let's just go,” he grumbled. He hated himself for being a little jealous of Emma and even more for being jealous because of Charles of all people. He didn't even like the man. He just asked him for help because he didn't have any other option. Going with Emma was definitely better than being struck with Charles.

“Sure you don't want a longer break? It'll be quite a walk for a delicate princess like yourself,” Emma smirked. When had she walked over to stand so close to Charles. Erik just glared at her. “Okay, fine, let's go,” she laughed. Then, to Erik's horror, she put a hand to Charles' cheek and pressed a kiss on his lips. Erik stormed off before he could see too much of that.

–

“Hey, Princess, wait up,” Emma called out. She had strode after Erik for a while now and finally had had enough. However, she didn't care enough about him to run after him. It had been fun to watch his hurried tactical retreat when she had kissed Charles. Messing with him was really far too easy. However, she had no incentive to walk though this maze of a ship all on her own. She even less wanted to have to rescue Erik a second time just because he had gotten himself captured again. He didn't strike her as somebody that should be left to his own devices.

“Why should I wait for you?” Erik snapped. He didn't even turn his head to her. “Why are you even following me? Wouldn't you much rather be with Charles? I'm sure you could have switched with that fuzzball.”

“Could have but I much rather keep an eye on you,” Emma smirked. “Nice booty by the way.”

This time, Erik actually swirled around with a thunderous expression on his face. Not that it had much of an effect on her. He also stopped long enough for her to catch up with him which was a nice side effect of the whole act.

“Just stating the obvious,” she singsonged. “See the merit of walking next to me opposed to storming away in front?”

“Did you just say that to make me stop and wait for you?” Erik hissed. He had started to walk again but in a pace that made it easy for Emma to keep up with him without breaking into a sweat. The Prince was really adorable having his feathers ruffled like that.

“Not just,” Emma allowed. Upon closer inspection of the live specimen, she had to admit that he really was quite handsome. Charles did have a decent taste in men, at least when it came to their looks. She wasn't yet too convinced of the merits of the Prince's character. If he was a diamond in the raw, he would need much too much cutting for her liking.

Erik harrumphed.

“What?” Emma arched one of her perfect eyebrows at him. “Anything you want to share, your highness?”

“Doesn't your boyfriend mind you flirting with other men behind his back?” Erik grumbled.

Emma bit back a laugh at the word boyfriend. “Why would he? What he doesn't know...”

“Aren't you the least bit afraid I might tell him?” Erik sighed.

Emma shrugged. “Why would he believe you? You're just jealous.”

“I am not jealous,” Erik snapped. He hadn't even waited for Emma to finish her sentence before he'd opened his mouth, much to Emma's amusement. It was as good as a confession. “Why would you even think I could be in love with that... that scoundrel?”

“It's obvious, really, don't you notice it yourself?” Emma sighed. “You haven't seen him in decades.” She ignored Erik's weak protest about him not being that old as they both knew what she said was true. “And still in a moment of great peril, the first person you think to call for help is him. Not the rebellion, not your parents, not even any other friend you might have. And then you meet him again and all you can think about is how much you would like to kiss him for coming to save your sorry royal ass. Were those enough reasons or do you want me to go on?”

“I hate you,” Erik grumbled.

“I'm shocked it took you that long to realize that,” Emma laughed.

“Oh shut up!” A pause. He stopped to look around. “Where are we going anyway?” That made Emma laugh even harder. “What?”

“Oh, sugar, the way you stormed off I was sure you knew where you were going,” Emma said. “We're going back to the Falcon of course. Not that I think it's the best idea I ever heard. That thing's a flying death trap. But at least it's Charles' flying deathtrap. Better than staying here forever and getting caught again. I don't want to find out what they do with trespassers.”

“And do you actually know the way?” Erik asked, his whole attitude broadcasting loudly that he didn't believe she knew it either.

With grace, Emma shrugged. “I know the general direction where we came from and have a decent sense of direction so we should find it without too much trouble.”

Erik was just about to tell her what he really thought of her sense of direction—nothing, but in a few more, less pretty words—when he abruptly stopped. His arm shot out to hold her back as well. “What if trouble finds us first?”he hissed and then pulled her over to a doorway.

“What-?” Emma was about to ask when she saw his face. Whatever he thought was coming their way, he didn't want to face it. Curious enough, though, Emma couldn't feel anyone coming. That couldn't be a good sign.

To both their relief, the door was unlocked and they were able to slip inside what turned out to be an empty store closet. “Kinky,” Emma muttered. Erik ignored her. The moment the door had closed, he had pressed his back against it and closed his eyes, as if he could held it closed by sheer willpower alone. Thinking of the last door she had seen him having contact with, Emma was tempted to believe it.

It took several minutes until he relaxed again. Emma still had no idea what was going on. She had sensed some minds around them, but none in the hallway beyond the door, nor any mind at all that would have vindicated such a reaction. “Care to tell me what this was about?”

“Ever heard of Darth Smid?” Erik replied. His voice still sounded strained.

“That commander of the Trade Empire? Sure.” Emma shrugged. “Who hasn't? He's one of those that had ended the last civil war, right?” She hadn't heard much about him, though, for one because she'd never cared too much for politics in general and the politics of the far away Inner Rim in particular, but also because the name always had been uttered in hushed voices and the tales about him had been fragments at best. “He's bad news?”

“Very,” Erik sighed. She hadn't noticed how pale he looked all of a sudden.

“Hey, are you okay?” she asked. It was not that she was worried about him, she just didn't want to have to drag him to the Falcon. She might break a nail.

Erik nodded slowly. “'m fine. Just need a moment to breathe, that's all.”

“Good. How did you know he was coming?” It still bothered Emma that she hadn't been able to sense him. If Erik wasn't imagining things—and she was almost certain he wasn't—it could only mean that either her abilities were weakening or Darth Smid was even better at hiding his mind than Charles was and that was to say something.

“His helmet. It's... I don't know how to describe it. It's special. I just know it in an instant, that's all,” Erik said by way of an explanation. “I'm not sure how to phrase it so you won't think I'm a bit insane.”

Emma looked at him for a long moment. There were several remarks waiting on the tip of her tongue— _sugar, there's nothing you could say that would make you sound any more insane to me than you already do_ —but instead, she smiled. Once in a while, it was good to know you weren't alone, even though the company you found was a fucking idiot with issues. “If it helps, I can feel people's thoughts and moods. Most of the times,” she added, thinking of what had just happened.

That brought a faint smile to his face. “I'm the same with metals.” He gave the door a gentle pat. Then, as if an afterthought, he sighed, “Well, at least that explains what Charles sees in you. I guess he finally found somebody that's just like him. Congratulations.” He shook his head as if to get rid of a thought. “Let's get out of here, alright? We wouldn't want to wait around for him to come back.” He slipped out of the door. It was hard to miss how much he avoided to look at Emma.

“Yeah, let's,” Emma murmured as she followed him. But her thoughts were with Charles. _Just like him_ , Erik had said. The realization that this must mean Charles could do the same things she could made her feel more lightheaded than she would ever admit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last regular update for a while as I'm currently too busy to write until about the beginning of July. Sorry and I hope you're patient with me.


	7. Chapter 6

“...I really don't see why it's a problem to have Erik and Emma go back to the Falcon on their own.” Charles crossed his arms in front of his chest. “They're very well capable to take care of themselves.” Logan snorted, to which Charles then replied, “Oh, I'm sure they won't shoot each other. Very...okay, fine, almost. But what if I had taken either of them with me? I need you more than I need either of them with the link to the main reactor. Thank goodness all Imperial space stations are practically identical in their basic design.”

They stopped at a junction. Charles listened for a moment. This deep into the ship, there weren't too many people around, unlike there had been further up in the base. But it always paid to be careful. He couldn't hear anything but the hum of the cooling system, however. He waved Logan along, before they hurried down the corridor. From what he remembered, there should be a patrol coming through every so often and he had no idea how long they had or how long he would take deactivating the reactor link.

They reached the link without running into any Stormtroopers. The controls were installed at one of two tall pillars on either side of what looked like a bridge over a giant ventilation shaft. Charles smiled when he took a closer look at the controls. Of course those were just standard imperial ones. He would have deactivated the link in less than a minute.

Just when he got to work, slowly deactivating it not to disturb any alarms, Logan growled close to his ear. They shuffled around the platform around the pillar to the side furthest away from the bridge and held their breath. Soon, Charles could hear them too, it sounded like a patrol. They waited for them to pass. Charles tightened his grip around his blaster. The patrol stopped in the middle of the bridge. They were talking for a few moments. Charles listened closely. But they just talked about how others were looking for the escaped prisoner. They hadn't noticed him and Logan. The Stormtroopers walked past and Charles finally dared to breathe again.

Charles turned the link off without any further problems. He was still wary of every sound. Something was not right. He hadn't been able to sense the Stormtroopers before Logan had brought them to his attention and he had concentrated on them. But that was not what disturbed him most. He could feel two minds coming in their general direction, but from what he could get from them, there were three people there. He just couldn't sense the third mind. Something was blocking him. It was a terrifying thought that he might have been expected.

“It's off, we better hurry and get back to the ship,” Charles told Logan when they were back on the bridge. “I'm done with this station.” Logan growled his agreement. A whine followed. Logan never felt too well around the Empire, but in all the years working together Charles had never seen him as nervous as on this station.

They took the most direct way back to the hangars they dared. Charles kept half of his attention on the two minds he had noticed accompanying the one he couldn't feel. He was sure it wasn't a droid. He couldn't get a read on droids, but he still felt something, at least within some with more of an own personality. He was quite certain who he couldn't feel was a human being or at least some sort of lifeform. Just a lifeform that had somehow learned to protect itself against telepathy.

Halfway to the hangar, Charles made Logan stop. The minds he had been monitoring weren't far away anymore. However, from what he could tell, they had just split up. The two of them he could feel were walking away from them, but in opposite directions. As they had come from the direction of the hangar, the only way left for the protected mind was directly to them.

Charles readied his blaster. If they met, Charles was sure there would be a fight. Next to him, Logan did the same with his blaster rifle. “If we run into someone, we shoot, create confusion and then we run,” Charles hissed. “I don't want to get caught up in something we can't assess.” Logan nodded. If there had been any junction ahead of them, Charles would lead them away from the point where the Stormtroopers had split up. But ahead, there was nothing but a turn in the corridor.

As they reached the turn, they stopped. Charles carefully peeked around the corner. It was just a quick glance but it was enough to spot a dark figure that could be no other than the feared Darth Smid in the corridor beyond. Charles pulled back quickly. He cursed low under his breath. “Smid,” he informed Logan. “What now?” They still had about half a minute. Logan raised his rifle pointedly. Charles sighed. “Well, alright, I guess there's not much else we can do. On my mark, we run.” Logan gave him a toothy grin. Of course the maniac liked that sort of plan.

So Charles raised his blaster as well. He established eye contact with Logan, before he counted silently down from three with his fingers. On the mark, they both leveled their weapons and ran around the corner. Charles just fired aimlessly in the corridor. Logan was screaming in his growling language while firing and grinning like a madman. They were lucky, Charles thought, from the look on Darth Smid's half-masked face.

He had thought they were lucky. Right up until the point when, as they were a mere handful steps away from him, Smid just raised his hand against the blaster shots. It happened too quickly for Charles to know for sure. It looked like the shots were absorbed by a force field. Smid's expression went from surprise to smugness and that was the point when Charles understood they were in severe trouble.

“Logan, stop firing and just RUN!” Charles screamed. Logan was much closer to Smid. His friend had gone for taking the enemy on straight ahead. Charles had stayed closer to the wall which was why he was out of range when Smid reached out with the same hand that had blocked the blaster shots just now. It was also why he could just watch helplessly as Smid grabbed Logan by the belt he was wearing over his chest.

There was a sound as of an explosion and Logan was knocked back to the other end of the corridor. Charles gasped. Instinctively, he reached out for Smid's mind to send him to sleep like he had done with that one Stormtrooper. But there was nothing he could reach for. He felt nothing but a void space where Darth Smid's mind should have been. Charles stared at the man in sheer horror.

“So we meet again, Captain Xavier,” Smid said as he turned to Charles. “Or should I rather call you Lieutenant Xavier?”

Charles shivered by the mention of his old Imperial rank. “I've been stripped off that rank ages ago,” he shot back. He should try and buy them some time. Logan looked like he was still partially stunned but coming back to his senses. As soon as he was up on his feet again, they would run. There was no point in fighting Smid if they couldn't win. And right now, Charles couldn't see how they could even reach a tie.

“And I could reinstall you in a matter of seconds, and promote you even faster than that.” Smid wave a hand. “All you have to would be for you to join me. I would even let you keep your ship.”

“Where's the catch?” Charles huffed. He didn't trust Smid further than he could see into his mind.

“Oh nothing for you.” Smid waved a hand dismissively. “Of course I expect you to help me re-capture that Prince friend of yours.”

Charles swallowed. Joining Darth Smid—or the Trade Empire for that matter—was ridiculous enough, but how in the galaxy could Smid expect him to turn on Erik, after all the years of friendship connecting them. “What did he even do? He's...” Charles shrugged. “He's always been such a dimwit, what could he possibly do to be of any danger to the mighty Trade Empire?”

That made Smid actually laugh. It was a cold laugh, not something Charles would ever want to hear again. “He is rather cute in his useless struggle, don't you think so, too? Of course he's no real threat to the Empire. He's just... a little disturbance. That's all.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Charles saw Logan get back to his feet. Smid didn't seem to notice, not even as Logan was sneaking closer. Charles gave his friend a mental nudge to just run. He could handle this, but he had no idea how he should get both of them out of the situation alive. A glimpse at Logan told him that he was the only one without a plan here. Logan was not at all ready to run.

All Charles needed to do was buy his friend some more time. “If he's nothing more than a little disturbance, how is he even worth reinstalling me?” Charles shook his head. “That doesn't sound right.”

“Oh, you just made one minor mistake. It wasn't worth making so much fuss about in the first place.” Charles stepped back as Smid made a step in his direction. Just there wasn't much space to go. He was but a step away from the wall of the corridor. Logan had almost reached Smid's back. Charles had understood Logan's plan by now. That didn't mean he approved of it but he would try to stop his friend.

Just when Logan was in Smid's back, he raised his hands, folded up and ready to bring them down on Smid like a hammer. Charles almost closed his eyes the second before Logan's hands made contact with the back of Darth Smid's helmet. It came as a surprise that he didn't feel the pain visible in Smid's face for a second before the man went down.

Logan shook out his hands, growled and snatched Charles' hand when he didn't react immediately. Right, run, the plan had been to run back to the Falcon as fast as they could. Charles stumbled after Logan before he could get his feet back under him and ran as fast as he could. The further away they were when Darth Smid came back to the better.

–

Erik peered down into the dark shaft he'd just almost stumbled into. He gave an impressed whistle. “You're lost,” he told Emma, but not before he'd taken a cautious step back from her and another two from the pit. It proved to be the right action, as Emma immediately smacked the back of his head for his impertinence.

“You never knew where to go to begin with, brat,” she shot back. For a moment, she peered down the shaft as well. “Looks like we can't go on this way.”

“Impressive, how could you tell?”

Emma glared at him. “You really want me to throw you down this shaft to find out how deep it is?”

“If giving me a headache for my mocking isn't enough anymore?” Erik snorted. “Let's head back, I think we just passed another hallway a little while back.”

Emma huffed, but didn't complain. At least not out loud, because Erik could feel the beginning of a headache forming in the back of his head. “You know,” she said when he was already ten steps away. “We could just try and see if we can extend a bridge or something.”

“And just how would you do that?” Erik hissed, but he came back for her anyway. “Is there a button marked with Extend Bridge or how did you come up with that idea on your own?”

“Very funny.” Emma gave Erik a flat look. “I just saw a bridge extend down there.” She pulled him away from the edge he'd just tried to peer over. “Come back here, you dumb blockhead, they might see you from down there,” she hissed. “There's a control panel here. Go and be useful!”

Erik grumbled, but he took a look at the panel anyway. There were no marks on it, despite what he had just said. He could just as well go ahead and press buttons at random. He tried it and the door behind them hissed shut.

“What did you do that for?” Emma glared at him. She had raised her blaster rifle and was pointing it at a spot a little left to Erik's right ear.

“Do I look like I know what I am doing?” Erik shot back. “I barely know more than you about this kind of thing.”

“Then use your fucking powers before I use my blaster.”

Erik rolled his eyes. “Let's hope they still work and you won't have to carry me off afterward,” he grumbled. He still felt into the wiring behind the panel, following one of it down to the floor they were standing on and into what felt like another mechanism.

“If you could hurry,” Emma urged. “It might get a little hot and rough here in a minute or so.” Erik looked over his shoulder, just to see her aim at a doorway about two floors up from where they were standing. He cursed and followed the wire back up as fast as he could. They were much too exposed here, he knew. They needed to get away soon before they were spotted by Stormtroopers.

He couldn't decide between two buttons. Emma was now shooting at the Stormtroopers who for some reason were trying to take out the wall next to the doorway in which Erik and Emma were standing. Erik closed his eyes and pressed one of the buttons.

The bridge over the shaft slowly extended. Emma didn't even acknowledge it, she kept firing at the Stormtroopers. There was a scream as she hit one that went down. She was already aiming at the next, but hadn't spotted the third yet. Erik pulled her back into the doorway. Where she had been perched, there was now a black smudge.

“Can't you watch out,” Erik snapped. The bridge was now fully extended. “Let's just run for it. I bet there'll be enough of them to shoot at later.”

Emma glared at him but she still lowered her rifle and nodded. “We should be close to the hangar anyway. There will definitely a welcome committee waiting for us.”

They ran to the other side of the bridge as fast as they could. Erik clenched his hands around his own blaster rifle as hard as he could, like that would help him stay upright and focused on dodging the blaster bolts hitting the bridge left and right. The only reason why he didn't stop as soon as they reached the cover of the doorway on the other side was Emma just continuing running. His pride didn't allow him to stop as long as she was still running.

However, he did stop once they were through the door, even if it was just for a second. He hit the button that closed the door, this time intentionally, and shot the control panel to bits, before he continued to run after Emma. There were no Stormtroopers in the corridor yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time. Now that they had been spotted, every single soldier on this deck and the neighboring ones would be on the hunt for them. And that was even without mentioning the alerts blaring everywhere.

Emma suddenly took a sharp turn to the right, that Erik, blindly stumbling after her in his exhausted state, almost missed. The corridor she had picked was only a few feet long, before it opened into the giant hole of the hangar. He had never been this relieved to see the Millennium Falcon. He couldn't even bring himself to call it a flying dump or the like in his thoughts.

Erik came to a halt next to Emma. She had taken cover behind some crates. Right now, none of the workers and Stormtroopers in the hangar had noticed them. Too bad there were so many of them between him and Emma and the Falcon.

“What now?” hissed Erik from the corner of his mouth. “We can't take out all of them.”

“No shit, Princess,” Emma hissed back. She paused for a moment. “Wait, Hank and your little droid friend are still in there, maybe if we could communicate with them, they could open the door for us, so we just have to run in and get out.”

“Shouldn't we wait for Charles?”

Emma shrugged. “He'll be here by then.” Erik wished he had as much confidence in his friend as Emma seemed to have. “And by the way, I have no idea how we should be able to contact them from here.”

“Use your powers?” Erik suggested.

“Like psychic powers worked on Droids, dimwit. Use yours.”

“I can't. I'm done. No way I could do that and then get into that deathtrap.”

Emma gave him a very long, flat look. “You must be really tired to admit that.”

“Yeah, now do something, or else we'll never-”

All of a sudden, the Stormtroopers acted confused, before some of them started to run over to another doorway while the rest just readied their weapons and starred in the direction of the doorway. Erik could hear hurried footsteps from there, too.

“What the fuck?” he hissed. Emma just shrugged. However, she seemed to have decided that they could just as well use the whole commotion for their own ends. She raised her rifle and aimed carefully at the nearest Stormtrooper. Then, she corrected her aim a bit to the side, to allow for the inaccuracy and shot. The Stormtrooper next to the one she'd aimed at went down.

“Nice shot,” said Erik.

“Do it better, then criticize. One went down, didn't he?” Emma hissed back. She shot yet another Stormtrooper down. By then, Erik had raised his rifle as well. He just fired blindly where the most people stood. After all, he had no idea who to allow for the inaccuracy of the rifle so it seemed like the better plan.

“On three, we run for it,” Emma said between two shots. The Stormtroopers near them had already noticed them and were running towards them. The closest of them were all already rounding the crates.

“How about we just run?” Erik shouted. There were now shots to be heard from the other side of the hangar as well. They shot down a Stormtrooper so close they didn't even have to aim to hit him each. He had even slid up to Emma to touch her so they would be able to watch each other's back. Emma nodded grimly. “Three,” she yelled.

They jumped over the crates in unison, right in the middle of a couple of confused Stormtroopers. Neither of them wasted the time to shoot, they just knocked down the ones that were in the way and ran to the Falcon as fast as they could. Emma was already lowering the ship's boarding ramp by the time he caught up with her. To their luck, the Stormtroopers' aim was even worse than Erik's and no shot had even come near them. Erik still watched her back, just to be on the save side.

The firefight from the other end was drawing nearer as well. Erik just paused long enough to see Logan's hairy head running in their direction. Charles was trailing after him, shooting their way free enough to get through. Erik would have helped, if Emma hadn't pulled him inside.

“Let's get this piece of scrap metal airborne so we're out of here as soon as they're aboard,” she shouted as she dragged Erik up the ramp into safe cover. Erik trailed after her helplessly. He could see her point and he was far too exhausted to fight her when they had more urgent things to do.

He collapsed against the wall, still clinging to his rifle. Concentrating on the cool metal in his hands helped him staying focused. He trusted that Emma was just as capable of flying on her own, so there really was no point in following her. The doors to the hangar were still closed, but that wouldn't pose much of a problem if he remembered the Falcon's firepower correctly.

“I can handle things here alone,” Emma called out as soon as the engines were running. “Give me a shout when the Captain and his flea bed are in so we can take off immediately.”

Groaning, Erik pushed his tired body up the wall again. There was a bunch of Stormtroopers coming towards the ramp. He gave a few shots into their middle, just so they knew they had to watch  out for enemies in both directions. “Just keep the ship steady,” he grumbled, but Emma was too busy to hear him.

Charles and Logan were now only a few more steps away, too close for Erik to keep on firing at the troops surrounding them. “Hurry!” he yelled. “Emma's ready to go. Do you want to rot on this station?”

“You're better ready for real!” Charles shouted back. “Smid's coming and I bet he's mad.”

“Smid's always mad,” Erik snapped at him as Charles and Logan ran past him. He had had his finger ready on the button to close the ramp the second Charles and Logan were in. At least, the Falcon's doors worked well. Erik held himself upright against the wall exactly up to the moment when the door sealed shut. “Emma! Get going!”

“Welcome on board, Captain,” Emma's voice came from the loudspeakers. “I could use a hand over here in the cockpit. Looks like they don't want us to leave this party early.”

Erik heard footsteps leave, but he didn't look up. Of course Charles would leave straight away to help Emma. It wasn't like Erik needed anyone right now, he was very content just sitting here leaned against the cold wall, almost passing out.

“So you're still a drama queen,” Charles said. Erik opened one eye to find his friend standing by the opposite wall, although in a narrow corridor like this it still meant he was close enough Erik could have touched him had he wanted to.

“Bugger off,” Erik grumbled. “Why are you still here? Doesn't Emma need your help?”

“Logan and Emma can handle it alone for a bit.” Charles shrugged. “I want to make sure you don't fall asleep here.”

“I won't,” Erik sighed. “I just need a break. Give me a moment or two and I'm back to normal.” He pushed himself up again with a groan. “See, I'm fine.”

“Are you now?” Charles looked skeptical. He sighed. “Look, I know we didn't have time to talk before but I want-”

Whatever Charles wanted, he was interrupted by Emma's voice blaring from the speakers again: “Captain, we could really need your help here. It's not like I couldn't fly this on my own, but I'd say we need somebody manning the canons, too. So get your asses over to the cockpit.”

Erik sighed. “Now, come on, let's help her before she starts peeing her pants.” He pushed himself off the wall and offered Charles a hand, not because he needed to hold onto something, merely to make sure Charles was really there. Too many times in the past decades had they missed one another by an hour or two or even in the last moment. I'm glad you came, he thought, hoping Charles would pick it up now their skin touched. Charles didn't smile. He did squeeze Erik's hand a little in what Erik hoped was acknowledgment. Together, they stumbled through the stuffed holds and the short corridors to the cockpit. The ship shook as if it had been hit.

“What the heck's going on?” Charles demanded to know. Logan didn't turn nor showed any other sign of having heard his friend and captain. All he did was stare outside and doing his best to keep the ship steady. The next time the ship shook, Erik could hear him growl low under his breath.

Emma, on the other hand, glared at Charles. “They're shooting at us. Or did you think they would just let us go?”

Charles cursed low under his breath. “Of course they wouldn't.” He brushed his bangs out of his face which flopped down immediately again. “Okay, Erik, you take Emma's seat. Help Logan with what you can and tell the droids to do as much damage control as they can. Or tell Magneto to, at least. Emma, you're coming with me. I hope you're as good against fast moving targets as you were against those rogues on Tatooine.”

Emma nodded and left her seat to Erik, who slumped into it gratefully. Assisting Logan was totally down with him for now. He didn't need to blast Imperial Starfighters into oblivion. He was just as happy sitting here and keeping an eye on the controls.

“Hey, where're we going, anyway?” Erik asked. He forced himself to focus on the controls and not on the debris visible beyond the screen. It still made his insides clench to think about its origin. So many lost... He shook his head, just in time to come back to his senses to hear Logan growl something that sounded much like “Not yet, bub.”

Erik nodded. That was so typical for these two idiots. He smiled a little as he entered coordinates he knew by heart into the navigational computer. “As soon as you're ready,” he told Logan, “Make a jump there. We'll have to make a few stops on the way, but I know just the place to hide for now.”

Logan tore his attention away from the flashes in space around them for as long as it took him to raise an eyebrow at Erik. He still nodded, however. “Charles trusts you,” Logan told Erik. “So I trust you.”

Erik didn't thank him for it, but he was close. “Let's just get us out of here as fast as we can.”


	8. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Falcon and crew have escaped from the Empire's grasp without a scratch. Now, they set course for the outer rim and settle down to get some sleep, before they have to make some decisions. However, before Erik is able to leave for bed, there's some talk and, more importantly, kisses.
> 
> Emma and Charles, however, both have their own plans as well, which they are working on behind the other's back.

Emma hurried after Charles down the corridor to the Quad-lasers. He was already opening the tub leading up to the one Emma had used when they had left Tatoonie. “Go up, I take the one down,” he said as he ushered her up. “Quick, I don't want those bastards denting my hull just because we couldn't blast them out of the universe fast enough.”

Emma raised an eyebrow at him, but he didn't comment on it. What had happened to the Captain that had threatened to abandon her on a moon if she dared to shoot some thugs in Mos Eisley? “Against the Empire, everything's fair game, huh?” she muttered under her breath in the safe loneliness of her Quad-laser dome.

From what she could see in the full view the dome offered to all sides but down, there was only a handful of TIEs coming after them. This was getting curious and curiouser. They sure had more than one squadron of them on board such a huge base, so why were there so few starfighters coming after them?

Emma shrugged. It wasn't their problem now. Whatever was going on, they could deal with the fall out later when it posed a problem. For now, her goal was to take out all those of the small, one-man fighters that were stupid enough to come within range of her laser cannons. She picked up the headset to hear the bridge and Charles.

“...read to jump as soon as possible,” Charles just said.

Emma took out one of the eyeballs before Erik replied, “Half a minute.”

She swung around to take another starfighter into scope, just as Charles replied, “Positive, just give us a fair warning before you turn on the hyperdrive.”

A salve went off that took out the TIE. At almost the same time, another one was hit, presumably by Charles, and blasted into pieces. The rest of the squad followed them, but none appeared to come any closer now. Then, the few farthest out at the flanks withdrew to return back to the station.

“What the fuck?” Emma cursed. Logan was growling too, something that could have been a curse without much imagination. There was no response from neither Erik nor Charles.

A few moments of silence followed, then, Erik announced, “Hyperdrive ready in ten, nine, eight...”

In tense silence, they waited for him to count down to zero. Emma closed her eyes when he was at two. She didn't want to have lasting afterimages from keeping her eyes open during the transition. The last of the TIEs were now retreating.

“And we're gone,” Erik concluded. There was a click in the connection that told Emma she had been cut off from the transmission. Oh very well, she thought as she climbed down the tube back into the main corridor again. There, she waited, but Charles took his time to come back up again. Emma was contemplating leaving for the bridge without him, when he finally showed up.

“Afraid we would meet some more enemies in hyperspace, Captain?” she teased. He raised an eyebrow. She shrugged. “Can't imagine what took you so long with Logan being able to listen in to you talk.”

Charles imitated her gesture. “I just needed to confirm something with Erik, that's all.” He yawned. “And no, of course we won't run into anything in hyperspace. Don't be silly.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Whatever you say, Captain. Shall we then? I bet you long to see him for more than ten seconds at a time.”

Charles punched her arm for that. “Do you have to interpret our relationship like that all the time?” He did not, Emma noted, correct her, though. She grinned.

Back in the cockpit, Charles leaned his arms against the back of Erik's chair. Emma had decided she very much preferred to stand with her arms crossed.

“So, Erik, care to tell us where we're going or is that just between you and Logan?” Charles asked.

Erik sighed. “Ultimately, Yarvin,” he said. “More precisely it's forth moon, because what business would we have on a gas giant?”

“Yarvin 4, huh?” Charles said. “Not an ideal place for a base, given its history, but I guess the strategic advantage of a habitable, uninhabited outer rim moon trumps that all.” He nodded. “Not bad. Until we get there, we should use some time to rest. At least that's what I'd say.”

“Charles...” Erik began but then stopped. Emma had the distinct impression there were nails digging into his shoulder.

Before anyone could say anymore, Logan pushed himself off his seat and disappeared out of the cockpit and down the corridor. Charles looked at Emma and then at Erik. “Off you go, I can tell you're both tired as well. I can handle things here until Logan comes to relief me,” he declared, all but shooing Emma out of the cockpit. She conceded and left. Erik, however, she noticed, was allowed to stay where he was.

But that could wait after some hours of sleep. She felt the day had taken its toll on her as well. Though she was not yet unable to hide it like Erik and to some extend even Charles, she was sure she would fall asleep as soon as she lay down. She stretched a bit, wandering off in the wrong direction so she would reach the main hold before the crew quarters. She had to check in on Hank before she could sleep. Who knew what that stupid droid could get up to otherwise.

She found him in the middle of a discussion with Magneto. From what she could tell, it had been going on for quite a while now. Hank seemed to be very excited.

“No, it's not okay to have me help you knock down firewalls and decipher files,” he told the astromech droid in what would have to pass as his stern voice. The smaller droid whistled. “Why not? Why not? Because that's wrong and illegal and you know that much! I really had expected better of you.” Another cacophony of whistles. “I don't care if Master Erik or Master Charles told you to. That doesn't make it any more right, moral wise.”

“But you know,” Emma interrupted the droids. “Erik's a Prince, so that makes it, while not morally right, legal, I guess. At least if he decides that it should be. Does that help your dilemma with..?” she prompted and was not disappointed. Hank swallowed the bait without missing a beat. “The data this little bucket of short circuits has had in him. He tells me they're important, but I can't see how breaking into sealed data could help anyone.”

Emma nodded. “But I think I can. Hank, I want you to help him. Our lives may depend on it.”

“Understood Mistress Emma,” Hank said. He didn't sound happy. “But may I ask...?”

“I suspect Erik, or someone who passed it on to him, stole the data from the Empire,” Emma explained. “I'm off to sleep, but I expect you to tell me what you find there, understood?” When the droid nodded his confirmation, she left for the crews quarters. She could really take a couple of hours sleep. Maybe then, all those little secrets between Charles and Erik would make a little more sense.

–

“So, Smid wants you that bad,” Charles began. He was still leaning on the back of Erik's chair, thus making it impossible for Erik to look at him in a comfortable angle. Erik didn't even try. He was content with looking down and stare at the controls. They were monotone. It was nice, after a couple of much too exhausting hours. He didn't need a long, even more exhausting talk with Charles now.

“Smid wants you so bad he sends one squadron after us when he could have easily sent ten and then they retreat at the first sign of us putting up a fight,” Charles repeated and elaborated. “Don't you think that's strange?”

Erik shrugged. “How would I know what's going on in that sick head of his?”

“So it's not strange?” Charles pushed himself off the chair and walked over to slump down in the captain's chair.

“It's definitely strange,” Erik grumbled. He turned his chair to look at Charles. “So, Captain, what should we do now? Search your ship for a tracking device? That's where I'd put my money about why they didn't continue to follow us. They didn't need to, because we'll tell them where we are, all the time.”

Charles considered this. “I'll ask the droids later. They were aboard all the time, after all,” he said after a while.

They fell silent again. Erik wasn't sure what to say anymore. There were a lot of things he wanted to ask or say, but none of them seemed opportune—or even important right now.

“So you're really with the Rebellion,” Charles broke the silence after a while. “What happened to the boy I knew?”

Erik huffed, “He grew up and started to look at the world instead of dreaming of the sky.” He shook his head. “Should have kept my feet on the ground. We thought the Empire wouldn't dare attack the ship of a Diplomat, you know? If we had, I would have taken a faster ship, or left it to somebody else.”

“Erik...” For a moment, Charles looked like he was about to reach out for him. “You know what Smid did to Alderaan wasn't your fault,” he said so softly Erik could pretend he hadn't heard it.

“Did you meet him on that station?” Erik asked instead. “You said he was coming after you, so, did you?”

Charles sighed. “Can we talk about something else? I promise I'll tell you about it once we slept, but, Erik, please, not now.”

Erik nodded. He could respect if it Charles didn't want to talk about certain topics. After all, he wasn't ten anymore. “What did you want to talk about before?” he asked instead.

Charles shook his head. “Not now,” he said.

“Is there anything you want to talk about, Charles, anything at all or do you just want to keep me awake as long as you can?”

Charles grinned at him for that. “There might be a certain number of things I would talk about. But it's also possible that I'm just trying to seen when you'll fall asleep on me if pushed.”

Erik shook his downcast head, trying his best not to let Charles' see his smile. “Jerk,” he said fondly. “So, which of this number of things do you want to talk about the most?”

Charles shrugged, but, as tired as he was, Erik didn't miss the mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “Well, there's the question if there's a Princess of Alderaan,” he smirked.

“As if you didn't know,” Erik laughed. “And we're not in some sort of bar. Those pickup lines won't work on me.”

“Don't they?” Charles leaned forward. “Too bad, for a second I though I had you laughing.”

“That's not the sense of a pickup line.” Erik crossed his arms in front of his chest.

Grinning, Charles gave back, “The sense of a pickup line, no, but the sense of a bad pickup line, very much so. You always look so thunderous. It's good to see you smile. You never smile on pictures or holovids.”

Erik rolled his eyes. “I hate those things,” he admitted.

“You always did.”

Erik nodded. “Just like you still get in trouble on other's behalf.”

“You're one to complain, it's you whom I saved the most.” Charles made himself more comfortable in his seat. Outside the window, hyperspace sped past.

“That's only because half of the time, you got me into the trouble first,” Erik laughed.

Charles rolled his eyes. “I never forced you to join me.”

“No, but back in the day, I wanted to impress you,” Erik grinned. “How could I possibly let my friend down?”

“One can only imagine what we could have gotten up to had we actually seen each other more than just once,” Charles sighed. It sounded as wistful as Erik felt about those days back in their childhood.

“I'm glad you came for me,” Erik admitted. “Not because you saved me from Smid, that too, but, I'm glad to see you again, old friend.”

“Me too,” Charles sighed. “I was worried after your last message. And then I find Magneto with a stranger—that was Emma, by the way—and, more interestingly, Magneto has, among other things, the blueprints of a gigantic space station on his hard-drives.”

“So Emma is not just your current girlfriend?” Erik asked the one question he wanted answered the most. “I even helped you indirectly to meet her?”

Charles shook his head. “Whatever you're thinking, she's not my girl!” he insisted. When Erik huffed, he added, “She only kissed me because... I don't know why. Maybe just to annoy you and me at the same time.”

“Why would I care who you kiss.” Erik turned away, his arms crossed once again. “And if you and Logan and Emma would live here on this ship in a happy three-way relationship, I really don't care.”

“I promise you, we don't,” Charles said. “Besides, you're really far from acting like you don't care. If I didn't know it any better I'd say you're jealous.”

Erik scoffed. “Sure, like I would be jealous on your behalf,” he said. “I even think she could be really perfect for you, with all the things you have in common.”

Charles brows knitted at that. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on.” Erik rolled his eyes. “She has the same abilities as you, in case you didn't notice or thought I didn't know. So, perfect match, don't you think? She even seems to enjoy the adventuring. Congratulations, Charles, you found the perfect woman for you. Or, rather, she found you.”

“Erik,” said Charles in a low voice. Erik turned away. He didn't need to hear his friend confirm all his fears. “Erik, look at me,” Charles repeated in much the same voice.

Erik looked pointedly away.

Letting out a frustrated huff, Charles told him, “You are aware that your behavior now proves all your words lies.”

“Then why do you want me to look you in the face when you tell me how happy you are to have her f-” Erik got exactly that far, as he had lifted his head to look at Charles again, just to have his face captured by two warm hands and being pulled closer to Charles for a kiss.

Erik's first instinct—especially after the past few days—was to fight the hands holding them, despite him realizing that it were Charles'. He needed more of his mind to calm down enough to let Charles even continue. That was why it took him a few heartbeats to realize how soft Charles' lip were against his own or how wet or how hot his tongue was licking through his lips and even a few more before he had regaind enough presence of mind to kiss Charles back and use his hands better, like to bury them in Charles' hair.

The kiss left Erik very much breathless when Charles pulled back a few inches. He could feel himself drowning in Charles' bright blue eyes as he moved forward again for some more breathless kisses. Charles was only too happy to oblige and kiss back some more.

They didn't stop until, just as Charles was about to slide onto Erik's lap, Erik yawned. Charles burst out laughing, leaving Erik confused at first before he fell in as well, leaning his forehead against Charles' shaking shoulders.

“I think that means you should go and get some rest,” Charles concluded as soon as he had stopped laughing.

Erik sighed. “Won't you come with me?”

Charles shook his head. “Someone has to keep an eye on this ship,” he laughed.

That had Erik wrap his arms around Charles again. “Can't I just nap here?”

“Wouldn't a nice little cot be much more comfortable,” Charles said, but he made no move to stand up again.

“I slept in that cell for days, another night in some old sat through chair will not kill me,” Erik grumbled but he still let his hands drop so Charles could get up.

“You'll sleep better in a bed, trust me,” Charles told him, before he kissed him on the forehead and got up. “We can kiss more after we both slept, if you want to.” He said that with his back turned to Erik, a move he'd even as a child had used to hide his own embarrassment.

Erik grinned. “Yeah, I would love to.”

–

After Erik had left, Charles remained seated in his chair for a long while. There was nothing to look at but the rushing blue of hyperspace, but he found that calming while he was thinking. He waited, not only to make sure Erik would have found his way to the crew quarters, but also because he needed to decided what to do.

There was a high likelihood that the Empire wasn't following them because they didn't need to. It was ridiculously easy to attach a homing beacon to the hull of a ship, especially a ship in a hangar. So, it was very likely that they had done so, at one point, as a fail-safe in case they managed to escape or, worse, they had even let them escape so they could lead them to a rebel base.

Charles ruffled his hair. He knew they shouldn't just let that happen. However, he was reluctant just to disable the homing beacon. Staring at the hyperspace outside the window, a plan started to from in his mind. There still was one knocked out Stormtrooper in the secret compartments under the corridor floor. Absentmindedly, he checked the status of the Falcon's escape pods.

Pleased that his plan might just work, he got up and sauntered over to the main hold where the droids were waiting. He found the protocol droid, Hank his name was he reminded himself, in stand-by. Mags, however, was up and chipper as always. Charles smiled to himself. He crouched down in front of the astromech droid and explained something in a hushed voice, so not to wake Hank. Magneto whistled to signal that this was an easy thing to do and then, after a few moments of silence, added a long string of beeps and whistles, proving Charles' suspicions correct. If Charles interpreted the sounds he made correctly, Magneto told him that it would be just a few moments to figure out the general direction.

Charles nodded and returned to the corridor. He checked with his powers whether the Stormtrooper was still unconscious, and, upon finding him awake, sending him back to sleep with his powers. It took him a few moments to recover from the exertion. He couldn't remember when he'd last used his powers that much on a single day. Heck, he couldn't even remember using them this much in a month.

Charles went over to engineering bay to ready one of the escape pods. When he was done, he went to check the time. It was still more than an hour until Logan would come to relief him off duty. He contemplated waking him, but decided against it. He would be able to do this alone.

It was harder than he'd thought to hoist the unconscious Stormtrooper up unto the corridor floor and drag him the short way over to the readied escape pod. He shut the pod after him, before returning to the cockpit. The next part of his plan would be very difficult and much too dangerous to execute in hyperspace, so he let the Falcon return to normal space. He could only hope there wasn't any Imperial ship close by. He put the autopilot back on with a course just to fly straight ahead. As soon as he and Magneto would be done, they would jump into hyperspace and take the direct route to Yarvin 4, he promised himself. 

He returned to the main hold. Mags was already waiting for him, chirping with excitement.

“You understood what I wanted you to do?” Charles asked, receiving a positive whistle as reply.

“Good. I'm counting on you. Remember, I need you to bring the beacon intact. Don't disable it, understood?”

When Magneto agreed to that as well, Charles lead him over to the docking ring, where Magneto would be able to leave the ship without wasting any of the air inside. Incidentally, it was also closer to the beacon than the boarding ramp. Charles waited on the inside, his eyes on the communication panel so Magneto could contact him any time and his stance tense, while the astromech droid went about his work outside. Charles knew, logically, there was nothing that could go wrong for him there, but he still fretted.

It wasn't before long that Magneto returned, the homing beacon in his grasper arm. Charles was about to reach for it before he realized that it might not be the best idea, since it was most definitely very cold after spending so much time in space. Instead, he left the attaching of the beacon to the escape pod with the Stormtrooper in it. As soon as they were done, Charles launched the pod and let Magneto return to the main hold to get some rest and recharge his batteries, if needed.

Charles himself returned to the cockpit. He set the course for Yarvin and made the jump back into hyperspace, before settling more comfortably into his chair and closed his eyes, so Logan would find him napping later when he came to relief Charles from the first watch.

 


End file.
